It is in spring, from March to May, that Seville is chiefly visited; the warm air and hot sun, the orange-trees in flower, the great religious festivals, the famous bull-fights, attract a host of foreigners, and the city has an animation unwonted even in the gay and lively capital of Andalucía. In winter Seville has a quieter, but perhaps not less potent charm. Winter often brings with it a succession of cool clear days, when the sky is of a serene, almost transparent blue, with golden sunsets. The white lines of flat-roofed houses seen against the blue of the evening sky have the soft light and colouring of opals, while the distant hills of the horizon are faintly purple. On these still days the motionless river reflects the lines of leafless silver birch and yellow tamarisks in all the tracery of their slender branches. A few yards further from the bank on either side thousands of dark orange-trees are hung with gleaming fruit, circling the city with a fringe of lamps. Above and through the trees, now bare and grey, of the _Paseo de las Delicias_ show the various greens of the tall eucalyptus-trees and palms, the orange-trees and cypresses of the Santelmo gardens. On the quay lie immense mounds of oranges ready to be packed: the hot sun fills the air with their scent, children make flying attacks and retire precipitately with an orange apiece, while an occasional beggar also receives his dole from the apparently inexhaustible store. In the ever-crowded _Calle de las Sierpes_ small open stalls display fresh violets and magnificent carnations and roses, and in some gardens one may see roses and geraniums in flower. In the lovely gardens of the Alcázar the sun draws a deliciously mingled scent from the box-hedges, myrtles and oranges.
Occasionally--still in unclouded weather--the wind is cold and piercing and all go muffled to the eyes, the men in their _capas_, the women with long shawls. In the _Patio de los Naranjos_, beneath the trees laden with oranges, the wind sweeps across the pavement of rough bricks, intergrown with grass and the duller green of mosses, and rattles the fallen leaves in lines and circles. Far above, the great Giralda tower stands pink and creamy grey in the clear winter sky. By the Gate of Pardon, in a corner of hot sun and sheltered from the wind, a few beggars sit warming themselves and watching with Oriental patience and immobility. The streets are mostly too narrow to let in the sun, but in the _plazas_ and any open space men are seen basking in sunshine, _tomando el sol_. Along the bridge that leads to the suburb of Triana the seats on both sides are crowded. Triana, better than Seville, corresponds to Cervantes’ description of a city where adventures are to be met at every street corner, and Triana supplies an army of loiterers whose life’s mission in winter is to “take the sun.”