Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Seville's former tobacco factory is the very same where Bizet's Carmen (and thousands of other cigarreras, cigar girls, worked. A massive structure, built as a kind of citadel, complete with sentry boxes and moat.

In the 18th century, tobacco was a product in great demand: iIf you didn't smoke it, you sniffed it (as snuff), and if you didn't sniff it, you chewed it. Work on the new Tobacco Factory was begun briefly in 1728 and seriously in 1750, but the factory was not completely finished until 1771. It had courtyards, wells and fountains, a chapel and drawbridges over the moat. This was not to prevent people getting in, but to prevent the workers smuggling tobacco out: the cigarreras, as famous for their cockiness and sauce as for their attractiveness, were not above taking a little something home to supplement their income (interestingly, it has been suggested that one of the reasons for the magnetism of the cigarreras, their large, dark, flashing eyes, was probably the tobacco dust in the air, which could have caused effects including semi-permanent dilation of the pupils. Another would have been their tendency to combat the general stuffiness by shedding clothing, which must have made a lasting impact on the male travellers who started making a point of dropping in on their way through Seville).

The building was taken over and restored by Seville University from 1949 onwards.

Click here for University (Fábrica de Tabaco) opening hours, entrance prices, and how to get there.