Days 12 and 13 marked the arrival in Seville and the end of the road trip, shifting from Andalusian highways into a single city dense with accumulated history and scale; from Triana’s riverfront traditions and the Torre del Oro to Plaza de España and María Luisa Park, Seville quickly expanded from lived neighborhood to civic spectacle, before tightening again in the historic core where the Cathedral and Giralda compress centuries of conquest, devotion, and imperial wealth into one layered monument built over the former mosque. It continued in superlative fashion at the Real Alcázar, where still-active royal spaces and Mudéjar courtyards extend continuity rather than preservation, before the city moved between tapas, Las Setas at sunset, flamenco at close range, and rooftop baths above the illuminated Cathedral, ending the journey in Seville at its most concentrated, luminous, and complete.
Day 12: Arrival, Car Drop, Plaza de España and the Cathedral
The driving portion of the trip ended in Seville. Dropped the car at the train station Hertz lot and grabbed a taxi to the hotel. Final mileage: just under 1,200 miles, accumulated over eleven days of driving through ten provinces, and approximately 40,000 meters of elevation change through sierra after sierra. Zero incidents, zero scratches, zero parking tickets. Phew! The car and I parted on respectful terms. We were at the hotel before noon, dropped bags and went out to explore.
Along the Guadalquivir
First, Triana Market, unfortunately closed on Sunday afternoons, so we planned to be back the next day. Triana sits on the west bank of the Guadalquivir, separated from the old city by the river, and has historically been Seville's other city: the traditionally working-class quarter of tile makers, bullfighters, Flamenco dynasties and Roma communities. The barrio produced some of the great Flamenco names. Seville's famous ceramic tile tradition is based here, the workshops and showrooms still operating along the riverfront streets. The atmosphere is different from the tourist-dense Santa Cruz across the river: more local, quieter on a Sunday, the kind of neighborhood where people are clearly actually living rather than performing their residence for visitors.
Churros with thick hot chocolate from a kiosk on the Calle Betis served as adequate consolation for the market being closed. Enjoying the decadent chocolate-dripping fried-dough pastry riverside, with views of the old city across the Guadalquivir, made a strong case for being among the best ways to start a Sunday anywhere.
Back across the river, along the promenade, the orange trees are in bloom. The smell is amazingly intoxicating!
We walked by Plaza del Toros, but didn’t feel like going in, as we had already visited the one in Ronda. We just enjoyed it from outside. Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza is Spain’s most elegant bullring; less brute arena, more Baroque salon for ritualized drama. Built between 1761 and 1881, its distinctive oval shape and bright yellow-and-white façade feel almost theatrical before anything even happens inside. It seats about 12,000, though the real audience is as much social as sporting. Seville dresses up for this. Considered the spiritual home of bullfighting, it hosts the city’s biggest corridas during the Feria de Abril. Equal parts tradition, controversy, and choreography, depending on where you stand. My initial travel plans (late April) would have included a corrida (see my thoughts on it on the Ronda post); this early in the season, it didn’t.
Just on the opposite side of the street, the Torre del Oro (Tower of Gold): a 13th-century Almohad military tower on the riverbank, built as part of Seville's defensive walls. Its name is either a reference to the golden tiles that once covered it or to its role as the receiving point for American gold; no matter. It now functions as a small naval museum. We admired the exterior and kept walking towards Plaza de España.
Plaza de España and Seville Cathedral: history at grand scale
On the way towards Plaza de España, a quick duck into the lobby of the Hotel Alfonso XIII, one of those spaces that earns a few minutes of respectful walking-through even if you are not a guest. Built in 1929 for the Ibero-American Exposition in a Mudejar-Renaissance style of considerable theatrical ambition, it is now a Marriott Luxury Collection property, and the lobby retains its coffered ceilings, intricate tilework, and the particular atmosphere of a room designed to remind you that the concept of grandeur was once taken very seriously.
Let’s keep walking!
Next to the hotel, the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville (once the largest in Europe), today the rectorate of the University of Seville. Across from it, right before Plaza de España, a smaller park (Jardines del Prado de San Sebastian) provided a huge contrast to what was to come across the street. Quiet. Somewhat secluded. The Premier Garden Cocktail Bar in the middle of the park, with couches laid under the shade of giant oak trees, made it a “must stop” before venturing into the bustling Plaza. Feet up. Cocktails. Shade. The murmured shuffle of leaves above. The rare and underrated pleasure of doing absolutely nothing for thirty minutes. Aaaaaah!
Plaza de España: built for the 1929 Exposition by architect Aníbal González, and possibly the most extravagant public square in Spain. A vast semicircle building in Baroque-Renaissance style, fronted by a canal and crossed by ornate bridges. It’s lined with 48 tiled alcoves around the interior of the curve, one for each Spanish province, each with a ceramic map and historical scenes specific to that province (Spain has 50 today, but Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands) were not in existence at that time). On a Sunday afternoon it was absolutely heaving. Part public square, part civic museum, part spectacle. Overwhelmingly impressive. Borderline chaotic.
The adjacent Parque de María Luisa, donated to the city in 1893 and redesigned for the Exposition, provides the necessary decompression: fountains, pergolas, elderly men playing chess, families with strollers, ducks and turtles agitated in the pond, the mesmerizing fragrances that were announcing Spring was about to spring!
Later in the afternoon we had tickets to the Cathedral and Giralda Tower. On Sundays it does not open until 2 pm, given the earlier religious services. Massive is an understatement. Imposing is not enough either. Monumental is the word that probably describes it best. Catedral de Santa María de la Sede is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Built between 1401 and 1506 on the site of Seville's great mosque. The chapter's stated intention was: "Let us build a church so great that those who see it finished will think us mad." They were not lying. And they did! 116 meters long, 76 wide, 42 high, five naves, 80 chapels, an altar screen that took 80 years to complete. The treasury contains enough gold and silver to embarrass most European national collections.
Inside: the tomb of Christopher Columbus, his coffin carried on the shoulders of four sculpted figures representing the kingdoms of Castile, León, Navarre, and Aragon. Whether Columbus's remains are actually in Seville or in Santo Domingo (both cities have claimed them since the 19th century, DNA testing in 2006 gave Seville the stronger evidence though without fully resolving the dispute) is a question that will likely remain entertainingly unresolved. The coffin is real. The claim is significant.
Beyond the sheer scale, it’s the density of objects that starts to register. The main altarpiece, a vast gilded construction of carved scenes and figures, feels less like decoration and more ofan act of sustained obsession. Decades of work compressed into a single wall of gold. Nearby, the treasury rooms quietly display monstrances, reliquaries, and processional pieces of almost excessive intricacy, the kind of craftsmanship that suggests time was once a far more available resource. Even the choir, enclosed and inward-looking, has a gravity to it; less about openness, more about ritual and hierarchy. You move through it aware not just of size, but of accumulation: centuries of wealth, devotion, and intent, all left in place.
Stepping outside into the Patio de los Naranjos, the contrast is immediate. The clipped orange trees and fountains offer a calm counterpoint to the cathedral’s interior drama. For a moment you can almost sense the pulse of what once stood here: the great mosque of Seville, its courtyard a hub of daily life and prayer centuries before these Gothic walls rose. Stone arches and sun-dappled walkways hint at that earlier rhythm, a quiet reminder that this city is always layered, each generation building (sometimes literally) on the one before. It’s the perfect moment to pause, breathe, and prepare for the slow ascent of the Giralda, where the view finally rewards the architectural patience of centuries.
Seville Beyond the Main Attractions
Ten minutes north of the Cathedral, the Iglesia del Divino Salvador, another former mosque converted to a church, with a Baroque interior of considerable ambition, is included with the Cathedral ticket and is worth the short walk for the quality of the ornamental tilework alone.
On the way, we popped into a couple stores for a closer look at the extravagant clothing displayed in many storefronts, which the locals typically wear during Feria de Abril. Seville’s annual spring fair is a week-long celebration of Andalusian culture filled with music, dancing (especially flamenco), food, horse parades, and late-night socializing in private and public tents called casetas, where locals gather dressed in traditional attire and the city essentially moves outdoors. It happens late April, and we purposely avoided it (read huge crowds and inflated pricing), but might be something of interest to many. Yet, not all locals go crazy for it. Our cab driver actually mentioned that he was planning to leave the city for the occasion.
During the festival women wear the form-fitting, ruffled traje de flamenca in bold colors, often with flowers and shawls, while men opt for the tailored, equestrian-inspired traje corto. Together, that image creates a scene that feels less like a festival with costumes and more like a living expression of Andalusian tradition.
For dinner, I was looking forward to La Brunilda, for a fresh twist on traditional tapas. Unfortunately, I did not do my homework and reservations were required. Wah wah wah… But in a city where good bars and restaurants are at every corner, one can not have too many regrets… So Bar Baratillo it was, for the convenience and the thirst for a cold cerveza.
My list was exhaustive and extensive, so I’ll drop a few names here, for reference, in no particular order: Bar Paco Gónora, Bodeguita Romero, Casa Matias, Casa Morales, Vuela, Bodeguita Casablanca, Chicuelo Bodeguita, Morante, El Pintón, Bodega Santa Cruz, La Carboneria, Los Coloiales, Bar Alfalfa, Bar El Comercio, and El Rinconcillo (noted as the oldest one in Seville). Clearly one needs weeks here, to enjoy the culinary scene…
An after-dinner stroll took us back to the Cathedral, equally imposing under the floodlights. And for a better view, we grabbed a drink at the EME hotel rooftop. Be advised: the cocktail list is priced for a hotel terrace opposite the Giralda, which is to say: fine, worth it once.
As the night was still young (by Spanish standards) we night-capped it around the corner at Antigüedadas Bar de Tapas, mostly because we didn’t want the day to end, and the bar back looked impressive! Partly because I wanted to try vino de naranja (orange wine), a traditional wine in Seville.
Buenas noches!
Day 13: The Alcázar, las Setas, more Flamenco & the Perfect Moment
There is a particular kind of travel day that works like a well-structured piece of music: a strong opening, a sustained middle passage that keeps building, and then an ending that resolves into something you weren't expecting to feel quite so directly. Day 13 in Seville was that day. It began at dawn in a Mudéjar palace and ended at eleven at night in a rooftop pool overlooking a floodlit Cathedral with a glass of cava, which is arguably, and as the MasterCard commercial states: “priceless”.
Real Alcázar: royal Moorish palace of Spanish kings
Early morning: Real Alcázar, with time-entry tickets reserved well in advance. And once again, with pre-booking we were able to get ahead of the line. The regular queue was already snaking around the corner at 9:30 am!
The word Alcázar (from Arabic al-qasr, the palace) has appeared in these posts more times than I can count. Every city in Andalucía has one. But this one is different. It is still a royal residence. The Spanish king and queen use it when visiting Seville, which is why the Royal Apartments require a separate ticket, bags and phones are locked in storage before entry, and the tour is facilitated by security guards. It is not a museum in a palace. It is a working palace that accepts visitors.
The complex began as a Moorish fortress in the 10th century, was expanded through the Almohad period, and then was dramatically transformed by the Christian king Pedro I in 1364, who brought craftsmen from Granada to build in the Islamic style. The result is one of the finest expressions of Mudéjar architecture in Spain: tilework, stucco, horseshoe arches, and intricately carved ceilings built by Muslim craftsmen for a Christian king in a city taken from Muslim rulers, using the aesthetic vocabulary of the culture that had just been defeated. It should be ideologically incoherent. It is instead one of the most beautiful things in Spain.
Ferdinand and Isabella planned Columbus's voyages here. Charles V held his wedding here. The gardens, formal terraces of orange and rose, fountains, pavilions, maze hedges, are among the finest palace gardens in Europe. Allow two hours minimum; the morning slot sells out well in advance.
So let me try a visualization, since there are no pics to illustrate it. Or skip if you don’t have the patience or want to save the visual for an in-person experience.
The access point is easy to miss on the first pass, a staircase off the right side of the Patio de la Montería, the entrance courtyard. Bags, phones, cameras go into a locker (bring a €1 coin), and the audio guide becomes your companion for the next 30 minutes. The security guard at the top of the stairs has seen everyone try to sneak a photo and his expression reflects the accumulated weight of this experience. You do not take a pic.
What you walk into is the upper floor of Pedro I's 14th-century Mudéjar palace: a series of rooms that have been in continuous royal use for roughly 650 years, adapted by each successive dynasty but never vacated. The accumulated layers of eight centuries of habitation are still visibly present in the walls, the ceilings, the objects, and the views.
The Lobby is lined with early 18th-century tapestries from the reign of Felipe V, large Flemish-style works of hunting and myth in rich, jewel tones. They set the tone immediately: these are not museum pieces intended to sit behind glass, but objects that have lived here, part of the palace’s continuous life.
The Oratory of the Catholic Monarchs is small, intimate, and arresting, its walls dominated by a remarkable tiled altarpiece commissioned by Isabella in 1504. Created by an Italian ceramicist using then-new majolica techniques, it depicts the Visitation with a depth and color uncommon in Spain at the time. Isabella likely never saw it finished, turning the private space intended for her prayers into a quiet memorial; up close, the cobalt blues still feel vividly alive five centuries later.
Pedro I's Bedroom is where the 14th century feels closest: original Mudéjar walls, geometric tilework, and a coffered ceiling from his era still intact. The later 19th-century furnishings (bed, dressing table, deep red curtains) sit against it without tension, just another layer in a room lived in for centuries. Underfoot, the original tile, worn smooth by 650 years of use.
The Audiences Room marks the shift from private to official: the monarch’s formal reception chamber since Pedro I, still in use today, where Mudéjar plasterwork meets 19th-century state furnishings. From the arched windows of a room that has hosted royal audiences for centuries, you get one of Seville’s best views: the palace façade, the courtyard below, and the Giralda rising beyond. It’s the one view that visitors remember most clearly.
The Gala Dining Room is the largest space in the upper apartments, a formal setting for state banquets with a long central table, high coffered ceilings, and walls lined with large canvases. Impressive but austere, it’s built for ceremony rather than comfort. What stands out is the glazed gallery along one side, opening to views of the gardens below and the rooftops of Santa Cruz beyond. An elegant reminder of a world just outside reach, from a room that has been sealed off from it for 650 years.
The Billiard Room is the most unexpectedly domestic space, centered on a 19th-century table beneath a chandelier, part of the later renovations that softened the palace into something more conventionally grand. It feels almost like a country house room, with Mudéjar detail still running along the walls, and from certain angles you can look down into the golden dome of the Hall of Ambassadors below. Two worlds, seven centuries apart, stacked within the same space.
The Infanta's Room and the Portrait Galleries, the final rooms before exit, are hung with 19th-century royal portraits: the daughters of Isabella II, various Bourbon court figures, official state portraits in the tradition of the Spanish court painters. The room functions as a visual record of the royal family in the period when the upper apartments were most heavily used and most heavily renovated.
The Upper Gallery of the Patio de las Doncellas, where you walk to exit, is the moment most visitors wish they had a photograph. The gallery runs around the upper floor of the Patio of the Maidens, the great Mudéjar courtyard below, and from up here you look down at the long reflecting pool, the slender columns, the intricately carved stucco arcades, and the whole spatial composition of the courtyard's design. It is the same space you stood in on the ground floor, but inverted: instead of looking up at the upper arcade, you are the upper arcade, looking down at the people who are now where you were. The symmetry of the pool's reflection holds from this angle too, and the afternoon light at the right hour turns the whole courtyard amber.
No photographs permitted. Which means it lives entirely in memory, and memories, as it turns out, are less susceptible to overexposure than camera rolls.
While pics are not allowed in the appartments, the other areas of the pallace are fair game. Take a look:
Outside, the gardens were imposing. Similar to Viana, in Córdoba, but at a much larger scale (yet not as large as the Alhambra/Generalife in Granada). They are a lush labyrinth of courtyards, fountains, and shaded walkways that feel both expansive and intimately secretive. This too was one of the GoT filming locations, specifically, the Gardens of Dorne (see bonus entry for details).
The expansive complex covers five hectares and extends from the palace's southern face in a long sequence that takes about 40 minutes to walk properly if you don't rush, which you shouldn't. Orange trees scent the air in the early spring, hedges carve elegant geometric patterns, and tiled patios glint in the sunlight. Statues, water channels, and hidden nooks invite slow wandering, while the gardens’ layering of Islamic, Renaissance, and Baroque elements reminds you that every path traces centuries of horticultural and cultural evolution. A living, fragrant testament to the palace’s history and the pleasures of leisure for Seville’s royals. A few more pics, that clearly don’t capture it all:
Wandering Seville - Santa Cruz and Beyond
After the Alcázar, more time browsing around Centro and Santa Cruz, and lunch at Sal Gorda: a modern kitchen that was, after eleven days of traditional Andalucían fare, the right creative + experimental pivot. Cod fritters with honey foam. Yellow gazpacho. Pork cheek tacos. And the oxtail donut: braised rabo de toro inside a glazed ring of brioche dough, the meat gelatinous and deeply flavored, the sugar glaze creating a sweet-savory combination that shouldn't work and definitely works. I have thought about this oxtail donut more times than I am comfortable admitting in a published format. Oh, and one observation worth mentioning: most restaurant menus are lacking in the salads department (unless you call tomatoes + canned tuna a salad). With all this food, I’m surprised we didn’t gain a lot of weight on this trip. Must have been all the walking….
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| Plaza del Cabildo |
From there, another walk across the bridge for the Triana Market. Open today, but given the mid afternoon hour, most of the stalls were either closing for the day, or for siesta. More jamón, mini fuets, and - of course - a nice, cold Albariño.
Instead of a siesta, a quick stroll along the Triana side of the river, and another “hydration” stop at Abades, on the terrace, to watch the boats and kayaks go by and for a different vantage point of Torre del Oro.
Then bridge back across, change at the hotel, and back out to explore further north.
Setas de Sevilla (the Mushrooms of Seville, officially the Metropol Parasol) is a vast, undulating wooden structure that rises from the Plaza de la Encarnación like something designed for an alien picnic, completely out of place, aesthetically. Completed in 2011, it is currently the largest wooden structure in the world: 150 meters long, 70 wide, 28 high, built of layered Finnish birch over a steel skeleton. The rooftop walkway at sunset, with the old city laid out in every direction and the parasol's organic shapes filtering the late light, is genuinely spectacular. Capacity is limited, so book ahead. I did not. Had a mental note to do it, but when the “reminder” popped up it was already too late. Oh, well… still enjoyed it nonetheless.
Dinner was around the corner. Bar Picantón (or Picantón Casayaki). Another “fusion-tapas” joint. Nice, but I think we were getting to the point where 2 weeks’ worth of Spanish tapas was getting old (wow… I never thought I would utter those words…). Or maybe it was the big lunch we had earlier. Or the mid-afternoon snack at Triana Market…
And now, the faux-pas of the evening. What can I tell you, I AM human, after all. I planned a Flamenco night in Seville as well. Being the anal-rententive person that I am, the venue was to be literally next door (Casa de la Memoria Centro Cultural Flamenco). Great reviews, intimate setting, all that “jazz”. But somehow (and for the life of me, I really don’t know how it happened) I booked Tablao Flamenco Andalusi, which was about 15 mins away. Last thing anyone wants to do with a full stomach is walk! And walk fast, specifically.
For only a couple extra euros I booked front-row seats, which for a tablao performance is the equivalent of being at the lip of a stage in a small jazz club: close enough to hear breathing, see sweat, feel the air move when a dancer turns. The guitarist opened with a virtuoso performance that felt improvised, although I’m sure it was heavily rehearsed. The performance swung from soleá (the deepest, most mournful flamenco form) through bulerías at a pace that made the beat almost impossible to follow. It culminated into an extended closing piece where the dancer moved at the edge of what the body can apparently do and made it look like something she did casually. This was clearly different from the Jerez show. More theatrical. More choreographed. Equally amazing!
Seville claims to be the birthplace of Flamenco. Jerez would contest this vigorously, and the Sacromonte caves in Granada would offer a counter-narrative. The truth is probably that Flamenco is Andalucían in the way that jazz is American: originating in specific communities within a specific geography, evolving through the contact between cultures, impossible to fully attribute to any single place. What is clear is that seeing it in Seville, in a dedicated tablao with a serious company, felt correct in the way that hearing jazz in New Orleans (instead of New York) feels correct. Not more authentic necessarily, but more at home.
But we’re not done, yet! Despite the late hour (9:30 by now) we had reservations at Aire Ancient Baths - a more upscale ‘Arab baths’ experience - at 10 pm. Make that another 15 minutes brisk walk. Shame on me for not paying more attention to the Flamenco show location!
Seville's Arab bath experience was more polished than Córdoba's Hammam Al-Ándalus (higher vaulted ceilings, Roman-style stepped pools, a refined aesthetic) but felt less authentic. No foam scrub, still a relaxing massage, but it culminates in something Córdoba does not offer: a rooftop infinity pool with a direct view of the floodlit Cathedral, less than a couple hundred meters away across the rooftops. We were in this pool a little before midnight, warm water, city quiet around us, the Giralda blazing gold against the night sky, enjoying a glass of cava.
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| Not my picture (clearly) but you get the gist... |
This was a perfect moment. I say "perfect moment" rarely and mean it specifically: a convergence of setting, circumstance, physical state, and company that produces something the mind registers as complete. Nothing missing, nothing in excess. I have been alive for some years and accumulated a relatively small collection of moments that qualify. A fiery sunrise under the Fitz Roy in Patagonia. Another atop Machu Picchu on the summer equinox. A moment from a Barça match in Camp Nou. Another in Maracanã. A burning sunset in the Danube Delta. Another, equally quiet, on an Aruba beach. This was in the same class.
Buenas noches, Sevilla!
Practical Notes: Days 12-13
Cathedral and Giralda: Buy tickets online (www.catedraldesevilla.es); queues can be significant in season. The Giralda climb is included with Cathedral entry; combined ticket also includes the Iglesia del Divino Salvador a few minutes' walk away, another former mosque converted to a church, with a Baroque interior of considerable ornamental ambition and usually far fewer visitors than the Cathedral. Allow 60-90 minutes for the Cathedral and Giralda combined.
Royal Alcazar: Book online in advance at www.alcazarsevilla.org (there are quite a few other sites that will sell you the same ticket for twice the price. Be warned!). Morning slots sell out well ahead in season, sometimes weeks in advance. General entry includes the palace and gardens; Royal Apartments require an additional ticket and timed entry. Allow two hours minimum.
Triana Market: Open Tuesday to Sunday, best on weekday mornings. Visit the Inquisition archaeology under the glass floor in the entrance.
Setas de Sevilla/Metropol Parasol: Plaza de la Encarnación. Rooftop walkway ticket approximately €5. Book ahead online at www.setasdesevilla.com. Best at sunset; arrive 30 minutes before.
Tablao Flamenco Andalusi: Book through their website. Front-row seats are worth requesting if available. The tablao format is designed for proximity. Shows typically run 75–90 minutes.
Aire Ancient Baths: Calle Aire 15. Book at www.airedesevilla.com. Reserve the rooftop pool time specifically. Evenings from 9pm onward have the best combination of city quiet and full illumination. The Cathedral view from the rooftop pool is the specific thing you are going for. Don't rush through the thermal circuit; allow yourself the full experience.
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