Confitería La Campana: Sweets Since 1885
Why is it significant?
On the busiest corner of the old town, where traffic, pedestrians and shopping bags all collide, you will spot a corner shop with an old-fashioned sign, polished wood, and windows full of cakes. Inside, glass cases glow with pastries, and a queue of Sevillians of every age waits patiently.
Key Facts
| Place | Confitería La Campana: Sweets Since 1885 |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaza de la Campana 1, 41004 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.39260, -5.99480 |
| Part of Walk | Seville Tapas and Convent Sweets: Hidden Nuns, Old Markets and the Oldest Bar in Town |
| Generated | Generated |
On the busiest corner of the old town, where traffic, pedestrians and shopping bags all collide, you will spot a corner shop with an old-fashioned sign, polished wood, and windows full of cakes. Inside, glass cases glow with pastries, and a queue of Sevillians of every age waits patiently.
This is the Confitería La Campana, open since 1885, and for many locals simply the pastry shop of Seville. Grandparents bring grandchildren here for the same cakes they were brought for, and on Sunday mornings the boxes tied with ribbon walk out of the door to family lunches all over the city.
What to look for? Seville's pastry tradition has two great parents. From the convents come the egg-yolk sweets: yemas, and tocino de cielo, literally bacon from heaven, a dense, silky custard of yolks and sugar that has nothing to do with bacon except its colour. From al-Andalus come almonds, honey and spice. And from the long winters of the countryside come the crumbly polvorones and mantecados of Christmas, made with lard and flour.
Now look at the square itself. The Plaza de la Campana marks the start of the Carrera Oficial, the official route of Seville's Holy Week. During those seven days every brotherhood in the city must pass this exact corner, with its floats, its band and its hooded penitents, on the way to the Cathedral. People wait here for hours to see them, and a pastry shop on the corner of the procession route is, let us say, well placed. Pastries and piety have always gone together in Seville.
Buy something small to eat on the way, because there is one more convent to visit, and it is a fair walk north. Follow Calle Trajano and Calle Amor de Dios towards the Alameda de Hércules, and turn into Calle Santa Ana, just west of it.