Monuments in miniature: Andalucía's top sights in one theme park

TRYING to cram in all of Spain's top monuments in one lifetime means being constantly on the go, even if you start your road-trips in playschool and live to be over 100. Perhaps what we really need is the equivalent of Las Vegas, where you can tour everywhere from the canals of Venice to the Eiffel Tower on one complex, then say afterwards that you've 'done' them and don't need to bother with the real thing – the Vegas versions are exactly the same, surely?

To a certain extent, Spain has one of those already – the Poble Espanyol ('Spanish Village') in Barcelona. Rather than monuments, though, this surreal and fascinating complex shows typical, life-sized buildings and streets from every province, carefully labelled and within separate quadrangles for each region, so by following the indicated route you can tour the country on foot in a couple of hours. 

And, it turns out, we also have our own micro-Andalucía; it's been around for nearly two decades, yet somehow we've all managed to miss it.

At Villasudores, exact replicas of famous tourism and heritage sites, as well as 'generic' and 'trademark' buildings seen in southern Spain, are created in microscopic, intricate and faithful detail, but in much smaller, more manageable sizes. 

So if you've been to the Alhambra Palace in Granada or the Great Mosque of Córdoba already, and would really quite like to see them again but can't be bothered with the queues, crowds or booking tickets online, head down to this open-air 'model village' in Gibraleón, Huelva province, and you can walk around each in minutes without missing any part of the original.

'Sweat shop', wendy-house and how a newborn baby teenager is to blame

Juan Bermúdez Gómez's extensive plot was named Villasudores in recognition of the blood, sweat and tears that have seemingly gone into creating this magical little theme park – although, in practice, it was a labour of love and something of an addiction, so rarely involves tears. It does involve blood, but not in the sense of haemoglobin-carrying fluid, as such.

Sudor means 'sweat', in noun form (as a verb, 'to sweat', it is sudar), so Juan's place is literally 'villa-sweats'. And this somewhat productive and artistic chronic perspiration started when Juan first found out he was going to be a granddad, and decided to build a little play-house for the future new human who was currently at the foetus stage.

“As we're in Andalucía, I wanted to create an Arab-style house,” Juan says.

After all, the region known in the Middle Ages as Al-Andalus was the gateway to the peninsula for the northern African, or Moorish settlers seeking their fortune in the eighth century and, although they swiftly spread out across the country they would call their own for the next 700 years, the Arab influence in architecture, food, place names and traditions is at its strongest in Andalucía.

“Based upon a photo taken of an Arab-style house in Ceuta [a Spanish city on the north African coast, just across the water from Gibraltar], this was the first construction ever created in Villasudores,” Juan explains.

The grandson it was built for probably no longer plays in it – he's now 19 – but if he has children of his own, they possibly will. And it's even got a rocking horse inside it.

Sevilla's top monuments, the size of a small-ish bedroom

Building play-houses designed as exact copies of real-life edifices, rather than just banging together a few planks and painting them in gingerbread colours, seems to be habit-forming: Juan has been working at a rate of an average of one per year, based upon extensive, detailed collections of photos he has either acquired or taken himself on site.

And we bet you won't find anything in the genuine Real Maestranza de Caballería bullring in Sevilla that isn't present in reduced proportions in the 'sweaty villa' version.

We also bet that your first word, if you clapped eyes on it in real life,would be 'wow'.

Thought to be the oldest bullring in Spain, the Real Maestranza de Caballería – which roughly translates as either 'Royal Horsemastership' or 'Royal Cavalry Training' – went up in 1733 and was originally made of wood.

Juan started off in 2008 with a four-square-metre (43-square-foot) concrete platform and 3,000 miniature tiles to create this stunning white-and-gold arena at just above head height – overall, in dimensions, it's about the size of a small-ish bedroom or kitchen.

Did we mention that all construction materials – bricks, tiles, the lot – are hand-made using wooden moulds Juan knocks together, and recycled waste? 

Yet it only took him nine months to assemble.

Monuments in Sevilla feature particularly heavily. The southern city's 12th-century Arab tower, constructed in the era of the almohade dynasty, made with giant, solid concrete blocks on a 10-sided polygon base, now houses the metropolitan Naval Museum – this, the famous Torre de Oro ('Golden Tower') is also present at Villasudores, complete with a spiral staircase inside so you can get to the top and enjoy the view.

Also, the Giralda – the 12th-century bell-tower at Sevilla cathedral – was built at Villasudores in 2009, taking around six months, and stands about nine metres high. Shorter than the original attached to Spain's largest cathedral, it's still house-sized and hard to tell apart in pictures from the genuine article. 

More recent – the real one, that is – the Costurero de la Reina, originally a sewing workshop, was built in time for when Sevilla hosted the Ibero-American Exhibition in 1929, a bi-continental and much earlier version of the city's famous Expo '92, pavilions from which are still in place and on the obligatory tourist trail.

The real Costurero is now used as a tourist information office, and the replica at Villasudores was, as Juan admits, 'especially complex', since it is 'a construction without any corners'. Although it's square, round towers sit at each of the four points, so the only straight lines involved are in the décor and lower part of the Arab-style window.

Only the ornamental painted porcelain plates encrusted into the latticework on the façade were actually bought; like everything else at Villasudores, the rest of the building was created with bricks made in specially-crafted wood moulds, using sand, cement, and in the case of the Torre de Oro, clay, to provide the reddish tones of the real thing.

Familiar-looking buildings from other Andalucía provinces

Originally part of the city wall of Cádiz, the remaining entrance archway, known as the Puerta Tierra, was built by Turcuato Cayón in the 18th century with a white marble façade, a blend of Arab and central-European Gothic, and was mainly designed as an open-air church altarpiece – its significance is religious, rather than defensive. 

Nowadays, it's the number one souvenir snapshot site in Cádiz, and serves as the gateway between the old town and the more modern quarters. 

Juan finished building his own last year. It's enough to make you weep when you see how productive he was during lockdown whilst the rest of us just messed about on Facebook and didn't bother getting out of our pyjamas.

Builders set up their cement-mixers and pneumatic drills on the site of what would become Córdoba's Great Mosque back in 785, deciding their own creation was an improvement on the landscape to the San Vicente Mártir visigoth basilica, which it replaced. Perfectly preserved, the Haram hall, with its eight-by-five columns in off-white and brick-red, is instantly recognisable thanks to the colourful optical illusion created by its multiple arches.

The Great Mosque was redeployed as a cathedral after the Inquisition, and the Medium Mosque at Villasudores has been under construction since spring 2014. It's nearly finished, says Juan: “Only a few of its parts need painting.”

Heading coastwards, the Nuestra Señora de la Candelaría 'hermitage' – a name given to a small, remote chapel on a mountainside or hilltop – in the Málaga-province town of Colmenar was built between the 17th and 18th centuries, although nobody quite knows by whom. On the outside, it has a colonial look – the type of church you'll find in Latin American countries that were built after the Spanish invaders descended and took over – in white with yellow-gold-coloured trimmings, the roof of the spires is made using the kind of clay tiles typically seen on houses or churches in Spain, and the inside is simple, minimalist, with none of the usual propaganda in the form of ornate gold and high-finish paintings normally found in Catholic churches and cathedrals (at various points in history, from Ancient Rome to the Renaissance and Spain's 'Golden Age' from 1492 to the early 17th century, top-quality, expensive art and architecture was a status symbol in ruling courts, palaces and churches, and those commissioned to build, design and paint it all would be paid handsomely). 

The version at Villasudores, Juan says, was built in 2005, is one of the smallest on his little complex and one of his most faithful replicas (more so than the ones we've seen so far? That must be impossible without actually resuscitating the original late-1600s architects to help out). 

Clearly, a mini-Andalucía would be incomplete without one of Europe's biggest tourist magnets, the Alhambra Palace. But the real one is enormous and takes you the best part of a day to wander around, even if you only give large swathes of it a cursory glance.

Nevertheless, one of this huge aristocratic Arab estate's most iconic sections is the Patio de los Leones, so-named because of the circular stone fountain in the centre with its white stone lions standing around it with their tails to the water, looking outwards – and, of course, there's one in Villasudores.

The lions must have taken some serious focus, but the most astounding part of the replica are the half-open galleries on each side of the square, since Juan has literally copied the complete Arabic inscriptions that line every column and arch, wall to ceiling, and to the letter. 

“Built in the 14th century, the maximum heyday of the Nazarí sultans and by order of King Mohammed V, [the Lions' Patio] is one of the best architectural features of the Alhambra,” Juan says.

Whilst the real thing would have involved large teams of construction workers over decades, Juan's – which he said 'took a very long time' – was in place within 18 months.

Local sites

Proud of his home town, Juan has recreated some of Gibraleón's favourite sites at Villasudores, including the little gem known as the Nuestra Señora del Carmen parish church. Founded in the 15th century and a blend of Gothic and Mudéjar – the style invented by the post-Inquisition Moors using whatever building materials they could get their hands on, usually brick and wood – its diminutive double was actually commissioned. The Gibraléon Cultural Association asked Juan to make one, so he smiled and said, no problem, and did. Just like that. 

Another one requested by the Cultural Association is the result of a travesty that would make the most stoic and stiff-upper-lipped break down and sob: The Guardia Civil station, a turreted and arched red-brick four-square castle-like beauty, one of Gibraleón's most-loved historic buildings and complete with gardens and fountains, was due to be demolished. Why anyone would do this defies all attempts at comprehension, but the Cultural Association wanted to 'save' it in any way it could. Enter Juan, who made a shrunken version, immortalising it at Villasudores.

Examples of typical structures

Not all the model monuments at Villasudores are copies of real-life ones; some are based upon typical, ordinary, everyday buildings – illustrative rather than imitations of existing sites.

They include the Andalucía-style patio, modelled on a familiar scene of a courtyard with a stone house in the middle and high white walls, with over 200 colourful flowerpots embedded into these and the front of the house. Juan says he is still working on it, using the existing structure of his exotic bird aviary (the feathered inhabitants add to the authenticity and beauty of it), and is looking forward to seeing the pots on the wall in full bloom once he's wrapped it up.

The Mediaeval castle tower is, again, based upon the designs of others of a similar era throughout Spain rather than on a specific original, but you certainly get the feeling you've seen it before somewhere – probably on a chess board. Square, built with giant concrete blocks, with pointed turrets for the crown, it looks like a giant rook or a smaller, more manageable variation of the towers found across the country in the early Middle Ages before later architectural styles, those introduced by the Moors and from elsewhere in Europe, began to dominate. 

Villasudores' buildings are not merely decorative, either. The typical Andalucía-style olive oil mill, in the region's trademark white with gold-coloured edges and relief, right through to its white, yellow and blue-painted brick 'kitchen' and implements, have been tried and tested.

“Despite its very small size, it works perfectly and has actually been used for the full process – from pulverising the olives, pressing the pulp and separating the oil from the solids – on a handful of occasions,” Juan reveals.

Back to his own provincial capital city, Huelva's Reina Victoria neighbourhood was christened after the British Queen of the same name, and enjoys minor fame for its very English-style houses. More English than, say, Scottish or Welsh; their walls are structured from cobblestones and flint with clay roof tiles, but with influences of typically Andalucía-type architecture and neomudéjar, a more recent attempt to replicate the original humble Arab mudéjar style of the early 16th century.

Concerning his version of one of these houses at Villasudores, Juan says: “To give it a bit of a different touch, the walls are decorated with sea shells from the beaches off the province of Huelva.”

Its inhabitant is a King, rather than a 19th-century British Queen. The King of the house, that is: Torete, the family dog. He uses it as an outside shelter when he's pottering around the grounds.

Now you've explored famous and ordinary buildings in the provinces of Sevilla, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Málaga and Huelva – or, basically, every one in Andalucía except Jaén and Almería, but no doubt those will put in an appearance eventually – the final, clay-and-wood structure on our list takes a bit of a detour. A very long-distance one, actually.

Juan's random Asturias 'entry' is no less sublime than the others, and is quite possibly more unusual than any of them. A traditional hórreo, a type of hut found on Spain's far-north coast, might be a fisherman's shack if you found it in Galicia or, as is the case here, a square building on stilts with a railed terrace all the way around, a pagoda-type roof and steps leading up to its only door.

These hórreos frequently found in Asturias have long been used to store and preserve food – and the Villasudores one still is.

“Even though it's built to scale, in the same way as the other hórreos, this one was designed to be used naturally as a larder for the produce we harvest on our farm,” explains Juan.

 How to visit

The tour of the 'mini-Andalucía' (and its outpost of Asturias) is fully guided, takes about 45 to 60 minutes, and you can visit as a group, couple, family or individual.

Once you've seen it, it doesn't mean you've 'done' it, unlike the Venetian canals and Eiffel Tower in Vegas; Juan says his monument-building is a 'way of keeping himself occupied in retirement' and that he will keep at it 'for as long as he has the physical strength and the space on his land'.

So, a fresh visit every couple of years means there'll almost certainly be new bits to see each time.

Booking is essential, so numbers can be staggered and to allow the Villasudores family to plan, but there is no mention of a price tag – if there was, it is likely it would be nominal; Juan does not create his masterpieces for profit and would do so with or without visitors, but the aim of letting the public in is purely so as not to keep them all for himself and his clan.

To arrange a trip, call (0034) 626 795 926 or (0034) 642 540 795 – both mobile numbers – or email bergomez44@gmail.com or parqueminiaturasvillasudores@hotmail.com. 

Getting there by car is relatively easy, as it's signposted from five kilometres away. From Huelva city, take the N-431 inter-provincial highway and follow the signs for Gibraleón and, after about 7.5 kilometres, take the turning for the A-495, the Gibraleón-San Bartolomé road.

After about a kilometre, you'll come to a turn-off to the left, known as the Camino Pozo Negro – take this and follow the arrow boards to 'El Parque Miniaturas Villasudores'.