Callejón del Agua: Water Inside the Wall
Why is it significant?
Walk slowly along this narrow lane, with the high, rough wall of the Alcázar on one side and whitewashed houses on the other, their window grilles spilling with geraniums and jasmine. Through the occasional open gate you glimpse a cool patio tiled in blue and yellow.
Key Facts
| Place | Callejón del Agua: Water Inside the Wall |
|---|---|
| Address | Callejón del Agua, 41004 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.38440, -5.98930 |
| Part of Walk | The Lost Judería of Seville: Santa Cruz, Susona and the Synagogues That Became Churches |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk slowly along this narrow lane, with the high, rough wall of the Alcázar on one side and whitewashed houses on the other, their window grilles spilling with geraniums and jasmine. Through the occasional open gate you glimpse a cool patio tiled in blue and yellow. It is probably the most photographed lane in Seville, and for once the crowds are right.
The name, Callejón del Agua, the Alley of Water, is literal. For centuries water reached this part of the city along the Caños de Carmona, a long aqueduct that brought it in from springs to the east. Inside the thickness of this very wall ran the pipes carrying that water to the gardens and fountains of the Alcázar. So the wall that marked the edge of the Judería was also a giant hidden waterpipe.
That is the key to the whole barrio. The Jewish quarter was built in the shadow of the royal palace, literally against its walls. Its people lived close to the king's protection, close to the king's water, and close to the king's eye. When the Crown stood by them, the location was a blessing. When it did not, there was nowhere to go.
What you see now, the flowerpots, the tiles, the romantic little gates, mostly dates from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Travellers from northern Europe came to Seville looking for an Orient of their imagination, and the barrio, half abandoned and very poor, was gradually tidied, whitewashed and dressed for them. In the 1910s and 1920s, ahead of the great Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, much of Santa Cruz was restored into the picture-book version you are walking through.
Which does not make it fake. It makes it a place that has been reinvented again and again, by Moors, Jews, Christians, romantics and tourists, each leaving a layer. Follow the lane west to its end, then turn right up Calle Vida into the last and loveliest square of the walk, the Plaza de Doña Elvira.