Diego de Aranda, scribe of the Indies fleet

Diego de Aranda, scribe of the Indies fleet

Play

My name is Diego de Aranda and for thirty years I wrote down what came off the ships: chests, bars, barrels, men who did not come back. One register went missing between the city's counting house and the river gate, and I have been walking after it ever since. You have younger eyes than mine — read what the stones say and I will tell you what they mean. Seven places, seven pieces, one word at the end. Nothing moves in this city unless you walk it, so walk.

The walk

A walk down the riverside edge of old Seville, from the city's civic heart to the Torre del Oro, through the Arenal — the sandy strip where the Indies fleet unloaded silver, where shipwrights, sailors and later bullfighters made their noise. Every stop asks you to read, count or name something that is actually in front of you. The story is told by a clerk of the fleet who has lost something and needs your eyes. Under two kilometres, mostly flat, mostly shade.

Where Diego de Aranda takes you

1. 1

   Plaza Nueva

   A bright square, convent ground until 1840 and finished in 1856, flanked by the City Hall's carved Plateresque façade.

2. 2

   Postigo del Aceite

   One of only three surviving gates in Seville's walls, where Aljarafe olive oil entered and dockyard workers headed for the river.

3. 3

   Curro Romero

   “Curro Romero in bronze”

   Near the bullring, a figure in a circular garden bed copies a real desplante by matador Curro Romero at the 1984 Feria.

4. 4

   Momuento a Carmen

   “Carmen, facing the ring”

   A 1973 bronze of Bizet's cigarette girl, turned towards the Maestranza where the opera ends badly for her.

5. 5

   Teatro de la Maestranza

   Seville's riverside opera house, built for Expo '92, where a scenery platform collapsed during a rehearsal in July 1992.

6. 6

   Mozart

   “Mozart by the water”

   A modest riverside statue honouring a composer who set operas in Seville but never once visited the city.

7. 7

   Museo Naval Torre del Oro

   “Torre del Oro”

   An Almohad watchtower on the Guadalquivir's edge, once a prison, now a naval museum, guarding Spain's only river port.