Plaza de Espana Seville is Amazing

26.05.2015

On another scorcher of a 35 degree day I headed out to see the number one attraction in Seville, which is what Tripadvisor calls the Plaza de Espana ( sounds better than Spain Square in English). In my humble opinion, it is a cracker of a place and well worth the effort to find it, ( of course I got off at the wrong bus stop and had to ask an Aussie, who had just visited it, how to find it). "Just follow your nose mate, it's just around the corner", he said, and blow me down, it was. It was built in 1928 for a World Fair, and is a beautiful piece of what you might call " Spanish ArtDeco". The buildings behind the facade are now used for Government Offices, and also used as the headquarters of the Spanish army. The have a really good free museum to explore in part of the building. It was interesting to find out that groups of people come from all over Spain to have their photos taken in front of the alcove which represents the province they come from, (a little pilgrimage). It is the thoughts behind and the amount of detailed tiling that goes into each individual alcove that for me turns the Plaza from a impersonal architectural statement to a place where individual Spaniards can feel holds a piece of their home at its heart. I found it too hot to explore the park areas surrounding the Plaza, which are supposed to be worth seeing. Maybe if I return another time when the temperatures are at least 10 degrees cooler than they are at the moment. Very few places in the world have that absolute WOW factor, and this is one of them..

Near entrance to park and Plaza