Inside the gardens of the Alcazar in Sevilla, you will find a headless statue and peacocks (among some ridiculous shrubbery mazes). But near the main entrance, you will come across one of the first images of the Americas and what is considered the first time Indians were painted (image not of the headless statue or the peacock) in a European painting.

The artwork is kept in the Admiral’s Room, a wing built in 1503 solely for the purpose to administer Spain’s ventures in the New World. Queen Isabel was an entrepreneurial royal and in these halls Columbus told stories of sailing the ocean blue, apparently Magellan (side note: my wife did all of the mapping out of our vacation; she is my Magellan. I just take the pictures.) mapped his world tour in this room and supposedly, our namesake, Amerigo Vespucci named that newly discovered continent.