'The House of the Dragon' reveals in a video the secrets of its Spanish locations: Andalusia, Extremadura and Girona

The authorities of the places where an audiovisual giant such as

is filmed , the great premiere of HBO Max in 2022, are aware of the great tourist boost that being part of its production entails.

Spain is well aware of this, after decades serving as the setting for major projects such as

(1963) and

(1962).

But it is even more so when those responsible for the fiction are in charge of publicizing the specific places where it has been shot.

The on-demand content platform published a video on its YouTube account on Tuesday promoting the Spanish destinations where they worked during the filming of the first season of the

prequel .

Andalusia, Catalonia and Extremadura (in addition to nearby Monsanto, in Portugal) have been the regions that appear in some of its chapters.

The series team thus extends the decision of its predecessor,

, to place several of its locations in Spain and set the audiovisual adaptation of the famous literary saga by George RR Martin in them.

More information

From Cáceres to Lloret de Mar: the Spanish locations of 'The House of the Dragon'

The seven-minute video, also shared on the rest of the HBO Max social networks, shows unpublished images of his days at work in the gardens of Santa Clotilde in Lloret de Mar (Girona), the castle of La Calahorra (Granada) and the streets of Cáceres and Trujillo, taking advantage of the fact that the country's architectural legacy helps make the series realistic.

One of the heads of the television adaptation, Ryan Condal, highlights "the common history that the team has with Spain", which made them repeat, although the plot occurs 200 years before what is told in

.

Pre-production work began in July 2021, with the first discussions about the spaces that the team was to explore.

Technical and artistic teams of between 250 and 600 people moved to them to turn them into the settings of the books.

Mario Santa-Cruz is the director of locations for the series in Spain.

He began his career in film and advertising and made the leap to Hollywood through The Mambo Film Location Services, a company dedicated to locations and ancillary services.

He has collaborated with productions such as

(2018) and the series

(Netflix).

Those responsible for

They asked him to "search for castles, beautiful gardens and also a city that resembles King's Landing."

That place turned out to be Cáceres.

One of the production challenges, Ryan Condal points out, is to visually unite the shots recorded in the studio with the authenticity of settings such as the city of Extremadura, to recreate the fictional capital of the seven kingdoms.

They spent two weeks filming there, turning "their old town into a set" during that time, and their neighbors into extras for some of the scenes.

One of the most commented of the six chapters so far broadcast on HBO Max occurs precisely in King's Landing: the nocturnal and almost incestuous encounter between the protagonist Rhaenyra Targaryen and her uncle Daemon her.

The main square of Trujillo served as the setting for a market after immediately convincing, Santa-Cruz says, one of the

of the series, Miguel Sapochnik.

His usual statue of Francisco Pizarro appears modified to place a dragon in the place of the conqueror, a distinctive sign of the history of George RR Martin.

Night shooting of 'The House of the Dragon' outside the castle of La Calahorra (Granada). Ollie Upton/HBO

And one of those castles that the production requested was found in La Calahorra (Granada), located on the top of a hill and chosen thanks to its large dimensions and its “reddish and sandy colours”, points out the Spanish location director.

"It's important for a show like this, which takes place so much in the studio, that the more big, spectacular things you can do in real places, the better," says actor Matt Smith (

,

), who plays Daemon. Targaryens in the series.

The art team created specific paintings that those responsible for the building liked so much "that they asked if they could keep them as they were," says the

But these types of productions are obliged to sign a good number of documents that ensure that the well-being of historic buildings is above their artistic interests, so they had to respect one of the previously signed clauses, which forced them to leave the room as it was. and how they found it.

Between October and November 2021 and after searching throughout Spain and part of Portugal, the Santa Clotilde Gardens in Lloret de Mar, in Renaissance style, with a wide panoramic view of the Mediterranean thanks to the cliff between Cala Boadella and Fenals beach, and About 27,000 square meters in size, they became those of the Red Fortress.

They appear in the first episodes of fiction.

The "gigantic scale" that

has reached exceeds that of

, says Peter Welter, producer of the saga in Spain.

“It was an honor when we started working on

in 2014, in the fifth season.

And then that became a year after year issue,” he says.

The gardens of Santa Clotilde, in Lloret de Mar. Tatiana Vitsenko (Alamy)

change of faces

With the broadcast this week of the sixth chapter of the series,

undergoes great changes, suffering a time jump in its plots.

Milly Alcock and Emily Carey have been the main actresses of the initial half of the first season, giving life to the adolescent version of the heiress to the throne Rhaenyra Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightowe.

In its most adult stage, Emma D'Arcy (

) and Olivia Cooke (

,

) take over.

It will not be the last time that fiction accelerates its timeline, those responsible have announced to the

after the broadcast of the chapter in which the generational change has occurred.

Once the wars begin, that rate will slow down considerably, they say.

Olivia Cooke (left) and Emma D'Arcy, in 'House of the Dragon'.

You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVISIÓN on