Game of Thrones begins filming at historic Islamic fort in Spain

With columned courtyards and elaborately tiled halls, the location has been partially closed for the shoot

The Game of Thrones crew has begun shooting parts of the fifth season of the popular HBO series at the Alcázar Palace in the southern Spanish city of Seville. Local authorities are delighted by this development and are forecasting a tourism boos, reported the Al-Arabiya News.

Onlookers held up umbrellas to protect themselves from the rain as they tried to look over a pastel-coloured synthetic canvas set up around the gardens of the Islamic fort. The barrier was set up to keep the show’s plot details a secret.



The royal palace, a masterpiece of Islamic architecture, which is packed with columned courtyards and elaborately tiled halls, said on its website that it would undergo “partial closures” until the end of October during the filming of the series.

Producers have reportedly obtained special permission to tint the water of the pools in the palace’s courtyard gardens dark blue for one scene of the fifth season, which started being filmed in Northern Ireland earlier this year.

They will use an eco-friendly product that evaporates several days after being used in the water, reported the ABC News. Seville, with its picturesque alleys, hidden plazas and flower-decked patios, already draws nearly two million tourists a year and local officials are optimistic that the series will draw more visitors for it.

“We will have to endure some inconveniences, taking into account the possible generation of jobs and the impact on tourism that this will have,” said Seville’s mayor Juan Ignacio Zoido.

The upcoming season will prove to be something of a midpoint for the series’ run. As expected, the story will draw heavily from George RR Martin’s fourth and fifth novels, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, reported the ScreenCrush, an entertainment news website.

After filming is wrapped up in Seville, the next location for the shoot is Osuna, a small hilltop town surrounded by olive groves located around 80 kilometres away  from Seville, which will serve as the backdrop for a battle scene.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2014.

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