Plaza España Square - Seville

Plaza España is a paradisiacal half-mile of palms and orange trees, elms, and Mediterranean pines dotted with tiled benches, ponds, fountains, and pavillions. It has a really long semicircular canal, a huge fountain in the middle, and it is designed with colorful and graceful ceramics tiles. It is without a doubt one of the most overwhelming buildings in Seville. Built for the Ibero-American Exhibition of 1929 (EXPO29), this monument is today one of the main tourist attractions in Seville, and is the size of five football pitches (50,000 square meters)!

One of the many corridors

It’s no wonder that George Lucas chose it to film a few scenes of “Stars wars: Attack of the Clones” (the Naboo planet scenes).

Plaza España is located in the middle of the famous Maria Luisa Park, also built for the EXPO29, to wow the attendees (and the rest of the exhibitors) with a display of arts and crafts from Andalusia.

Views from a balcony

Along the wall of the canal, look for the 48 tiled benches – each one of them represents one of the provinces of Spain (except for Seville). It’s a common sight to see people from the different provinces taking a picture on their “home” bench.

Caceres bench

Go to the fountain at the center of the Plaza and take it all in, it really is quite a sight to behold! And I really recommend you to go up and visit the numerous balconies. From them you can enjoy views of the massive square and the Maria Luisa Park at the same time. Everyone agrees that the one in the middle is the most impressive one, but you’d better check them all and decide for yourself!

Some views of the Maria Luisa Park

I must say that you cannot leave without renting a boat and rowing through the semicircular canal. It’s nice to see the Plaza from another perspective and it’s also just fun! Be careful though, as a lot of people don’t know how to row very well and they do crash sometimes!

Some people rowing in the canal

After you’re done visiting Plaza España (it won’t take you more than an hour), you can take a stroll around and rest a bit under the shadows of the huge variety of trees of the Maria Luisa Park, one of the loveliest parks in Europe!