Flags Courtyard and Waypoint

The Patio de Banderas would be to the Alcazar as the parade ground to the keep in medieval castles. As for its name, Fernán Caballero says in his book El Alcázar de Sevilla, from 1867: «… the origin of this sonorous name we have been able to find out, it is reduced to the fact that it is due to a bundle of flags that existed on the door in other times fresco pinted…” Despite this, it was labeled as Plaza Grande until in the late eighteenth-century the writer Pablo de Olavide named it as Patio de Banderas, and that way is known.

A reform was carried out, in the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, that gave it its current appearance, an albero pavement street, where cars circulated until the end of the twentiethcentury, surrounded by a central fountain. Archaeological works carried out between 2008 and 2009 place the first human settlement in Seville in the first half of the seventh-century BC.

This imposing courtyard surrounded by walls is currently a very visited space because it is the exit of the Alcazar visits, because it has direct access to the old Jewish quarter and because all visitors look for a large opened semicircular arch in the wall, known for its wonderful views of the Cathedral and the Giralda as La Puerta del Paraíso (Paradise Door).