Santa Cruz is a famous site and tourist center located in the neighborhood. The site is found along the streets of Calle Tintes, Calle Vida, Calle Gloria, Calle Susona, and Calle Aire (Risso 115). The latitude and longitude coordinates of Santa Cruz are 37.3842° N and 5.9903° (Risso 116). Around it is the Gold Tower, the bullring, and Alcáza, where most people visit. This helps describe where the site is specifically located in Spain.
Santa Cruz has beautiful scenery containing an intrinsic charm and a favorable atmosphere, king it become a tourism center. The site is within the strong city walls that were built by the Romans in ancient times. The site has qualities that make it more superficial to attract many, including its streets that provide shade during summer. The buildings on the site are of high quality, the frontage, and other streets are constructed following high standards making them look spectacular (McClure 35). Hotels and vacation rentals are highly decorated with beautiful design and fixtures to offer comfort and a unique experience for tourists. Santa Cruz has modern creations like the patchwork containing little squares, there are small formal gardens with palms and orange trees full of colors, blooms, and floral scent.
The natural, artificial and surface features of Santa Cruz are arranged to form a detailed map that explains the topography of the area. There are rivers in the place like the Guadalquivir River that moderates the climate around (Alonso and Alfonso 651). The area has many roads and highways that facilitate transportation as tourists enter, move around and leave the city. These features relate to the site physically by influencing the elevation, latitude, and landform of the site that then contribute to making it a tourist attraction site.
It is the presence of these features that attract most of the visitors to the place since the topography regulates climate and atmosphere to the extent that most people need. Topography represents the terrain of Santa Cruz and can be used by investors to understand the zone they are operating in and helps visitors to know the weather condition for planning purposes.
Santa Cruz is a significant place since it has both historical and cultural relevance. This place has many tourist attraction features that make people visit the site and pay to enjoy them. This means that the city is among the greatest contributors to the economic growth of Seville through revenue generation. Heritage tourism can be found on this site since it contains a mixture of cultural influences from contributions made by different cultures.
Santa Cruz is therefore rich in multicultural history that helps represent the stories and people of the past as in its artifacts and places (McClure 38). Individuals travel from all over the world to go and learn about the cultures and histories preserved in this place. The area has a remarkable collection of museums displaying the history and artifacts of the place. Santa Cruz serves as the tourist heart of Seville and is surrounded by different places that are so attractive; hence tourists can visit there too even when they had purposely come to visit the site.
Santa Cruz is rich with a sense of history, museums, cultural resources, and historians enriching its cultural landscape. The Flamenco Museum around the neighborhood contributes to the cultural vibrancy and helps in advancing community development through investments made in the creative economy of the place (Lamb 680). The museum is a gathering place that necessitates cultural celebrations, history exhibitions, and performance of artworks thus contributing to the cultural heritage of the people and shaping the cultural identity of the place. Santa Cruz helps to cultivate a sense of belonging in its people and this helps in transforming the society since it encourages identity and culture to flourish.
The place acknowledges diverse histories and cultures hence leading to community building and encouraging interactions among the people. Communities are thus brought together in the process of learning and this makes the experience more enjoyable. This has therefore improved the individual and social benefits of individuals.
Santa Cruz site was built in the 1st century BC by the Romans within a short time. The place served the purpose of being a tourist center since it was beautiful, had a lovely atmosphere, and had an intrinsic charm that attracted people in large numbers (Risso 126). This made it to be a living and working city with overwhelming arrivals, especially during Spring weekends. The main historical event that happened in Santa Cruz is expelling the Jews from Spain and the conversion of a past synagogue into Saint Bartholomew, a current church in its process of urban renewal (Risso 128). This is connected to people who had historical importance since expelling Jews caused a change in how things were done in Spain especially those from the Jewish culture.
The purpose and the relevance of the Santa Cruz site changed over time in various ways. After the Jewish people were expelled, the activities taking place in the beautiful site changed hence the income generated from the tourism activities. After some time passed, the number of people coming in to see the elegance of the place grew and as a result, the relevance of Santa Cruz increased even more. This was so since there was peace in the place and this was what people needed as they walked along the streets of this neighborhood. This caused it to gain cultural vibrance since it contained visitors from all over the world.
The site now became a spot where interactions between different cultures could occur and individuals could learn customs of other societies in this place. The cultural and tourism relevance of Santa Cruz has therefore increased over time since the number of visitors traveling there has increased all over the world. This has enabled Seville to raise more revenue from tourism activities leading to further growth of the city.
The purpose of Santa Cruz made it to play a role in the broader history of Spain and the Spanish empire. The site was used as a cultural center in the past, and an epicenter for Spanish exploration (Reinoso-Gordo et al. 85). The site is related to class materials since it sheds light on how historic sites and tourism centers can contribute to the development of a city and a nation. The current use of Santa Cruz is for income generation from tourism activities, and it enables the community to grow and improve their living standards. People visit this site today to explore its maze-like streets and the entire neighborhood on foot, to visit the Seville Cathedral and Flamenco Museum, and to sightsee the artifacts at the Archive of Indies.
Works Cited
Alonso, Inmaculada Mercado, and Alfonso Fernández Tabales. “Social perceptions and evaluations of the landscape at tourist destinations. analysis of the city of seville by means of qualitative research techniques.” Cuadernos de Turismo 42 (2018): 651.
Lamb, Ursula. “Cosmographers of Seville: Nautical science and social experience.” First Images of America Volume 2. University of California Press, 2020, pp. 675-686.
McClure, Julia. “Worlds within worlds: the institutional locations of global connections in early-modern Seville.” Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies 44.1 (2019): 33-51.
Reinoso-Gordo, Juan Francisco, Antonio Gámiz-Gordo, and Pedro Barrero-Ortega. “Digital Graphic Documentation and Architectural Heritage: Deformations in a 16th-Century Ceiling of the Pinelo Palace in Seville (Spain).” ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 10.2 (2021): 85.
Risso, Luciene Cristina. “Landscape, Heritage and Tourism: Study in the Historic Center of Seville—Spain.” Festivals and Heritage in Latin America. Springer, Cham, 2021, 113-137.