Things to do
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Alcázar of Seville
Seville's royal palace is worth half a day for two things: Pedro of Castile's Mudéjar halls, carved right up into their domes, and the gardens behind them, which deserve an hour of your visit to themselves.
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Calle Betis
A street of painted houses along the Triana bank of the Guadalquivir, facing the Torre del Oro and the bullring across the water. Bar terraces line the river side. Sunset is the busy hour, when the low wall above the water fills and the old town turns gold opposite.
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Casa de Pilatos
Worth seeing as the largest and grandest private house in Seville, still run by the Medinaceli ducal foundation, and you can take its ground floor and gardens at your own pace before deciding whether the upper floor is for you.
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Church of El Salvador
The city's second largest church, built over its main mosque, with a patio of orange trees where the courtyard of ablutions stood. Inside, gilded baroque altarpieces climb to the vaults. The cathedral ticket covers entry, and the square in front fills with drinkers standing outside the bars at noon and dusk.
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Feria de Abril
Come to see a whole city in its best clothes, out on horseback and dancing in its casetas until the small hours. Head first for the public casetas, which anyone can walk into.
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General Archive of the Indies
The old merchants' exchange between the cathedral and the Alcázar now keeps the records of Spain's empire in the Americas. Visitors walk the marble staircase and the long upper galleries, lined with mahogany shelves, where documents and maps are shown in glass cases. Entry is free and rarely queued, a good use of half an hour between the two big sights.
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María Luisa Park
Shaded avenues of palms, orange trees and pines run south from the old town to the Plaza de España. Tiled benches, ponds and small pavilions from the 1929 exhibition are scattered through the gardens, along with a hill and a square full of doves. Locals walk it in the evening, and horse carriages wait at the gates.
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Metropol Parasol
Six giant timber mushrooms over a market square, finished in 2011 to a design by Jürgen Mayer and known locally as Las Setas. It ranks among the largest wooden structures ever built. A winding walkway crosses the top for a view over the rooftops to the cathedral. Roman and Moorish remains found during the dig are displayed in the basement.
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Plaza de España
A vast brick and tile semicircle built for the Ibero-American exhibition of 1929, with towers at each end and a canal crossed by four bridges. Along the curve, a tiled alcove for every Spanish province shows a map and a historical scene, and Spaniards pose in front of their own. Rowing boats are for hire. It is free, open late and photogenic at dusk.
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Real Maestranza Bullring
A baroque ring of white arcades and ochre paint on the Arenal riverfront, among the oldest bullrings in Spain. Guided tours run most of the day through the stands, the chapel, the horse stables and a museum of costumes, posters and paintings. On fight days during the spring and summer season the tours stop early.
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Royal Tobacco Factory
A vast eighteenth century factory, still ringed by its dry moat, that now houses the University of Seville. Visitors may walk through the courtyards and corridors during term. It sits on the way between the cathedral and María Luisa Park, so it costs only a short detour.
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Santa Cruz
The medieval Jewish quarter, pressed against the Alcázar walls, with lanes so narrow that the houses shade each other through the afternoon. Small squares planted with orange trees open unexpectedly between them. Much of the prettiness dates from a restoration before the 1929 exhibition. It is thick with tour groups by day. After ten at night it empties and is worth a second walk.
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Seville Cathedral
Climb the Giralda for a view over the white roofs of Santa Cruz and across the river to Triana, then come down to the gilded altarpiece and the carved choir in the nave below.
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Torre del Oro
A twelve-sided watchtower on the riverbank at the edge of the Arenal, with a small naval museum in the rooms inside. The terrace at the top looks along the Guadalquivir to Triana and the bullring. The riverside walk runs past its foot, and the tower is lit after dark.
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Triana Bridge
An iron bridge linking the old town with Triana, the oldest still standing across the river in the city. A small tiled chapel stands at the Triana end. The view downriver to the Torre del Oro is best at dusk, from the middle of the span.
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Triana Market
The covered food market at the Triana end of the bridge, with stalls of fish, ham, olives and fruit and small tapas counters among them. Mornings are for shopping and the counters fill toward lunch. The building sits over the ruins of a medieval castle, now a small museum reached from inside the market.
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Alameda de Hércules
A long tree-lined square north of the centre, marked at each end by pairs of columns, two of them Roman. Families use it by day, with playgrounds and café terraces along both sides. After dark the terraces fill and the surrounding streets carry the city's most relaxed bar scene.
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Andalusian Centre of Contemporary Art
Modern art in the Monastery of La Cartuja on the island across the river, where monks once lived and a ceramics factory later fired its kilns. Brick bottle chimneys still stand among the cloisters and orchards. Exhibitions change through the year, and the grounds alone repay the walk or the bus ride out.
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Basilica of La Macarena
Home of the Virgen de la Esperanza Macarena, the most venerated image of Seville's Holy Week, crowned and weeping above a gilded altar. A museum beside the church shows the processional floats, mantles and jewels carried through the streets in the small hours of Good Friday. A stretch of the old city wall stands across the road.
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Castle of San Jorge
Excavated foundations under the Triana market, from the castle that held the Inquisition's tribunal and prisons. Walkways run above the remains of cells and walls, and the displays explain how trials worked and whom they targeted. Entry is free and the visit takes well under an hour.
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Centro Cerámica Triana
Housed in the old Santa Ana tile factory on Calle Callao, with its brick kilns uncovered and on show. Displays follow Triana's potters from Roman jars to the painted azulejos that cover the city's benches and facades. Tile shops still trade on the surrounding streets.
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El Arenal
The quarter between the cathedral and the river, holding the bullring, the Hospital de la Caridad, the Torre del Oro and a line of tapas bars. Streets here are flatter and wider than in Santa Cruz, and quieter at night. The riverside walk runs along its western edge.
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Flamenco Dance Museum
A museum of flamenco dance in an eighteenth century house in Santa Cruz, with rooms on the history of the dance, its costumes and its rhythms. Evening shows take place in the brick-vaulted courtyard below. Seats for the shows sell out in spring, so they are best booked a day or two ahead.
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Hospital de la Caridad
A working almshouse near the river whose baroque church holds some of the most startling paintings in Seville. Valdés Leal's two canvases on death and decay hang by the door, and paintings by Murillo hang along the nave. The tiled patios and the quiet chapel are a short walk from the Torre del Oro.
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Lebrija Palace
A sixteenth century house on Calle Cuna with Roman mosaics from Italica laid across its floors. The central patio is paved almost wall to wall with them, under Mudéjar arches and tiles. Upstairs rooms are seen on a short guided tour, and the shopping streets of the centre are on the doorstep.
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Museum of Fine Arts
Andalusian painting from the Golden Age hangs in a former convent with three cloisters of tiles and orange trees. Murillo's canvases fill the old convent church, and Zurbarán's hang in the rooms beside it. It is quiet even in high season, and on Sunday mornings an art market sets up on the square outside.
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Palacio de las Dueñas
Home of the Dukes of Alba, opened to visitors after the death of the eighteenth duchess. Lemon trees and bougainvillea fill a Mudéjar patio, and the rooms keep the family's paintings, flamenco dresses and bullfighting posters as they were lived with. An audio guide is included, and the house sits a few streets north of the Setas.
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Triana
The district across the river, historically home to sailors, potters and Roma families, and one of the cradles of flamenco. Workshops still make the painted tiles seen all over the city, and a ceramics museum occupies an old factory. The covered market stands on the ruins of the castle that housed the Inquisition. Calle Betis, along the bank, fills with drinkers at sunset.
