We’re back on the road after 18 months at home in Santa Fe. Boy does it feel good. And we’re so happy to be traveling with you again.
The Plaza de Espana is at the heart of Sevilla, geographically. It is the sight almost everyone visits first. I think this is because it is just so big. Like our Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Spain built the Plaza to celebrate their Ibero-American exposition in 1929. It is ornate and a bit fussy but thorough and conspicuously even-handed in the representation of every province of Spain.
Mosaics ring the elaborately paved plaza. Each province has a tiled alcove with a map and a tableau most usually representing an important historical moment in that province.
Every inch of the building surface; floors, ceilings, columns and balustrades are covered in elaborate ceramic tiles designed to echo zellij, the decorative tile work of the Moors in Spain.
The visual effect of the whole on the viewer is like eating a gigantic piece of wedding cake. It’s delicious about 2/3 of the way through. I think that is why our favorite visual memory of the Plaza de Espana was a little bit Sevilla and a little bit Santa Fe.
MedFlies 