Al Andaluz, Seville, March 27

We walked through the cloudy but not raining city to visit some less well-known landmarks. The campus of the University of Sevilla is housed in the historic Real Fabrica de Tabacos Seville, which at one time had over 10,000 mostly female employees. The most famous was Carmen, the protagonist of Georges Bizet’s opera of the same name. To see it, one would never image it to be a former factory. It looks like an academic building.

This is the old tobacco factory, now remodeled to serve as the University of Sevilla.

In 1929, Sevilla held a World’s Fair and many of the buildings were saved and are used. The main building is the Plaza de Espana. The area that housed most of the fair is now a large park with many walks and monuments.

The main building houses a military museum and has extensive ceramic decorations.

The banisters are ceramic as are the floors of the building.

Each province of Spain had a display.

The sun broke through clouds and warmed us up a bit. The water features reflected the buildings beautifully.

That evening we went to Tablao Flamenco, a small theater with a small cast of professionals. It was true flamenco with an excellent guitarist, dancer, and a singer. It was smaller than I expected but very well done.

The company has several locations around Sevilla that includes a school and museum.