Lubertadventure: Seville

Hot town, summer in the city

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

Been down, isn't it a pity

Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city.

Remember this one from the Lovin Spoonful? Well it certainly fit Seville (pronounced Seveeya) when we were there (it was 42 degrees C) up until the last line.

Seville must be one of the only cities we have seen that was truly planned for the people. Parks everywhere; fountains and bike paths, trees and planters, spectacular architecture.
In 1929, Seville hosted Ibero-American Exposition World's Fair, and the entire southern end of the city was redeveloped into an expanse of gardens and grand boulevards. The centre of it is Parque de María Luisa, a 'Moorish paradisical style' with a half mile of tiled fountains, pavilions, walls, ponds, benches, and exhedras; lush plantings of palms, orange trees, Mediterranean pines, and stylized flower beds; and with vine hidden bowers.
Numerous buildings were constructed in it for the exhibition. The Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González, was a principal building built on the Maria Luisa Park's edge to showcase Spain's industry and technology exhibits. The Plaza de España complex is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous bridges representing the four ancient kingdoms of Spain.
In the centre is the Vicente Traver fountain. By the walls of the Plaza are many tiled alcoves, each representing a different province of Spain. The Plaza de España has been used as a filming location, including scenes for the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. The building was used as a location in the Star Wars movie series — Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) — in which it featured in exterior shots of the City of Theed on the Planet Naboo. It also featured in the 2012 film The Dictator.

Contrary to our experience in Porto, we took a wonderful cruise down the Guadalquivir River and it was well-organized, clear and informative. It was incredible how many beautiful buildings and structures were developed for the Ibero-American Exposition World's Fair, in 1929, that were described for us along the river.

We were starting to regain our appetites after our long bout with food poisoning, and we enjoyed sampling numerous tapas with a bottle of Spanish wine for our long, lingering dinners. It is amazing how well you can eat in Spain by selecting a number of different tapas at anywhere from 1 to 3 Euros each and sharing a bottle of the excellent local wine. Most of our dinners – and remember this was in the centre of a very large city – were under $75.00 for two.