Seville – Metropol Parasol

The Metropol Parasol, or the Mushrooms of Seville, are one of the city’s new landmarks given their striking design and use of wood. The land which they are built on was formerly a market place which was in use until the 1970s. It was decided to build an underground car park at the site in the 1990s and then reconstruct the marketplace above it.

After the engineers excitedly started work on their new project, they were doing some digging and banging about (and some setting out as Liam would probably say) and then they found a load of Roman remains. So, the engineers stopped and the politicians had a little think.

The politicians decided that they’d better keep the Roman remains, so they decided on building a museum and something quite exciting on top. They planned to spend a few million on a new project and there were 65 entries submitted. This was all going marvellously.

So, the engineers started again banging about and having lots of breaks. Then the engineers realised they didn’t know what they were doing, and the structure might fall down if they built it. This meant they called in some philosophers to resolve the problem, and 100 million euros later, they’ve created the current structure.

They do get nearly one million visitors a year, but the time it will take to recover the 100 million euros they’ve spent might be considerable.

I had expected a few platforms to walk around, something like you might get in the monkey enclosure of a zoo. But, the structures were large and there were numerous areas to walk around, offering majestic and sweeping views of Seville.

Dylan and Leon would have liked this, they could have done some running around before their ice creams.

So, we start the walk.

The structure is clearly visible when on top and it’s made from laminated wood.

Some of the group towards the end of their walk.

Yes, it was too hot.

The view from underneath.

Overall, this was a really interesting experience and it’s best done when it’s not too hot. It opens until 23:00, which means that visitors can watch the sun set whilst walking around. There is a bar on the site, which has the most confusing voucher system arrangement that we in the end just didn’t bother with, and there’s lift access to the top. There’s an entrance charge of €3, which seemed very reasonable.