Moving through the darkened holds of a replica of Christopher Columbus’s ship, visitors on a recent afternoon marveled at the tangle of compasses, cordage and barrels. He stumbled as the ship rocked with the roar of the sea. At last a voice said “Earth!” shouted. And the white sands of America appeared.
“Our journey has changed the world. Let it be for the glory of God,” Columbus was heard telling Queen Isabella I of Castile. “I apologize in advance if injustices or injustices have been committed,” he added, referring to Native American peoples.
And so ends a show at the historic theme park Puy do Fou España, which is all the rage in Spain today, with more than a million visitors expected this year.
The park’s popularity is surprising in a country that has long been shy about celebrating its history. After the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who died in the 1970s, nationalist sentiments were largely banned.
The park is filled with sacred symbols such as the cross and the flag, and most of the exhibits feature victories and spectacular battles to defend the country. The more questionable aspects of Spain’s past — from the bloody conquest of America that followed Columbus’ voyage to Franco’s repressive regime — appear in no more than 10 productions.
“What we’re trying to do is present an undivided history,” said the park’s head, Ervan de la Villian, adding that historical taboos continue to run through Spanish society.
But the approach has raised concerns about the history the park highlights — emphasizing Spain’s Catholic identity and its unity against foreign invaders — and how it might shape visitors’ views.
“It’s selective history,” said Gutmaro Gómez Bravo, a historian at Madrid’s Complutense University who has visited the park twice. “You can’t or shouldn’t teach people that. History isn’t gratuitous — it carries important political weight.
The park was launched in 2019 after the founders of the original Puy du Fou in France, the country’s second most visited theme park after Disneyland Paris, decided to take their concept overseas.
Historians have long criticized the French park as promoting nationalist views. It similarly describes some painful episodes of France’s past, such as its colonial history, and highlights the country’s Catholic identity.
The founder of the French park, Philippe de Villiers, was named by Mr. Called a “mentor” and a “genius” by de la Villian, he is a prominent right-wing politician.
Mr de la Villian denied that the Spanish park promoted any political agenda. But he called supporters of Catalan independence his “enemies” and lashed out at former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a socialist who passed a law of memory to honor victims of the civil war and Franco’s repressive regime.
Spain, Mr. De La Villian said the country’s “great historical trajectory” due to invasions and conquests proved an ideal location for the new park. He chose to build it in Toledo, because the ancient city south of Madrid once stood at the crossroads of European empires.
There, some 200 million euros, about $220 million, have been invested to create an impressive complex of castles, farms and medieval villages, filled with terra-cotta vases and whitewashed houses with exposed beams.
But the biggest attraction is the historical stage productions staged in the huge amphitheatres.
“The Last Song” takes place in a revolving auditorium and follows El Cid, Spain’s greatest medieval hero, a knight and warlord, as he battles enemies who appear in succession behind large panels that open onto a semicircular stage. In “Toledo’s Dream,” a major evening performance of 15 centuries of Spanish history, Columbus’ life-size ship emerges from the lake on which the characters danced moments earlier.
Both shows received the IAAPA Brass Ring Award for “Best Theater Production”, one of the most prestigious awards in the international entertainment industry. On a recent afternoon, visitors raved about the experience.
“Wonderful – it’s wonderful. I didn’t know history could be so fascinating,” Vicente Vidal, 65, said as he exited a display featuring the Visigoths fighting the Romans. In the park, children can be seen playing swordfights, chanting, “We fight for our country!”
Mr de la Villian, a Frenchman, said the park’s success reflected a desire among Spanish people to reclaim their past. “People want to have roots, which is the first need that the success of the park reveals,” he said. “You come here and you think, ‘Man, it’s cool to be Spanish’.”
Jesus Carrobles, head of Toledo’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences, who consulted on the park project, said modern Spain has an uneasy relationship with its history because of chapters such as the Inquisition and American colonization.
“A garden allows you to reclaim an idea of your past that you can be proud of,” Mr. Carrobles said. “A beautiful past, a past worth remembering.”
But this proved to be the selective past.
While the displays portray Isabella I as a visionary and benevolent queen, there is no mention of the order to expel the Jews during the Inquisition. The Aztecs appear once in a dance scene, but are left to their mortal fate at the hands of the conquistadors.
Perhaps most telling is the park’s treatment of the Spanish Civil War, whose legacy continues to divide the country. The conflict is only vaguely mentioned at the end of “Toledo’s Dream,” when a woman mourns her brothers who “killed each other.” This scene lasts one minute of the 75-minute show, and the show ends without mentioning the four decades of Franco’s dictatorship that followed.
“It’s too early to talk about it,” Mr. de la Villian said, noting that memories of Francoist Spain were still fresh.
“It’s a very consensual show, it explains the questionable aspects of Spanish history,” said Jean Canavaggio, a French expert on Cervantes who has reviewed the script of “Toledo’s Dream.” He said the park could not have succeeded if it had taken a “critical look” at Spanish history, given how politically fraught it was.
Mr de la Villian said he looked for events that would illustrate Spain’s unity. At Puy do Fou España, they revolve around a central element: Catholicism.
Each performance consists of priests and soldiers dedicating their struggles to God. In “The Mystery of Sorbasus,” a Visigoth king converts to Catholicism as his army falls to its knees and a church rises from the underground, to the sound of soulful music.
Mr de la Villian – who makes no secret of his faith and has set up a small chapel in the park – argued that Catholicism was the “matrix” of Spanish history.
Mr Gómez Bravo, a historian specializing in the Civil War and Franco, said the park presented the Catholic reconquest of Muslim-ruled Spain as the foundation of Spanish unity. “It was a very politically charged idea because it was promoted more than anything else by Franco’s regime,” he said.
Still, many in the Spanish garden embraced the purpose of the park.
“Spain is a great country!” said Conchita Tejero, a woman in her 60s, sitting with three friends at a large wooden table in a medieval-style tavern decorated with imperial flags. “This park is a way to reclaim our history.”
Her friend, Esteban Garcés, a supporter of the far-right Vox party, said she saw the garden as a counterpoint to an “other history” that portrayed Spain as needing to make amends for its past.
As he exited the park later that night, Mr. Garces said he was happy with “Toledos’ Dream.”
“True history,” he said.
