Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

 Lucasfilm Ltd.

The hotel where The Crown filmed its California scenes. The former casino that set the stage for Lawrence of Arabia. And the plaza and palace that doubled as a planet in a galaxy far far away for Star Wars.

They're still there. Exactly as they were. Walk up, look around —and suddenly the city clicks into focus in a way it never did before.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones 

© Lucasfilm Ltd.

This self-guided walking tour takes you through the real Seville – the one Hollywood used to play everywhere else. The city that doubled for Egypt and outer space, Morocco and Beverly Hills. Where nothing on screen is what it seems – but everything you walk is real.

Start at Hotel Alfonso XIII, where Helena Bonham Carter arrived as Princess Margaret in The Crown – supposedly landing in Los Angeles, actually standing beneath the arches of an Andalusian landmark opened by a king in 1929. The Netflix team never crossed the Atlantic. They turned Seville into Beverly Hills and nobody blinked.

Cinematic stops. Each one a film location. Each one a story you didn’t know.

Walk to the palace at Plaza de Espana, where Peter O’Toole descended a staircase as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia. Part of the scene had to be reshot months later. On The Tonight Show, O’Toole joked that in the final print, he was a year older at the bottom of the stairs than when he started walking down them. Director David Lean spent nearly three years on the film. Fourteen months of that was shooting.

Continue on Plaza de España, where Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen walked across the crescent-shaped square as Padmé and Anakin on the planet Naboo in Star Wars: Episode II. George Lucas needed two days to capture two minutes of footage – and pioneered digital filmmaking in the process. The cameras arrived on set days before shooting began. Cross to the other side of the same plaza, where Sacha Baron Cohen delivered a dictator’s speech from a balcony in The Dictator. The production added golden domes with CGI and had three custom gold-plated SUVs built for the occasion. His ever-pointing finger? Inspired by Fidel Castro.

This is Seville through the lens of cinema. Lawrence of Arabia. Star Wars. The Crown. The Dictator. Kaos. The Wind and the Lion. Films that chose Seville not because it looked like Seville – but because it could look like anywhere.

The MovieWalks Seville Maria Luisa Park tour is a self-guided film location walk through Maria Louisa Park. No group. No fixed schedule. Download the app, start at Hotel Alfonso XIII, and walk at your own pace through one of cinema’s best-kept secrets.

Seville on Film. Walk It.