Things to do in Sevilla

Local guide

About Sevilla

Sevilla (Seville) is the capital of Andalusia and its most populous city, the fifth in Spain by municipal population. Its centre brings together three monuments that UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site together in 1987: the cathedral, the Real Alcázar and the Archivo de Indias. The cathedral is a Gothic church with Renaissance additions, and the Alcázar is a walled palace complex built in several stages, with remains of Islamic art, a Mudéjar palace and a Gothic one.

Beside the Guadalquivir river, the Torre del Oro is an Almohad albarrana tower from 1220 and 1221, with a second Mudéjar section and a third added in 1760. Across the river is Triana, the district joined to the centre by the Triana bridge, with its market on the Plaza del Altozano, where there has been a food market since 1823.

20th-century Sevilla has its great stage in the Parque de María Luisa, the city's first urban park, opened on 18 April 1914 on land that had been the gardens of the San Telmo palace. Inside the park, the Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González and built between 1914 and 1929, was built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition. Contemporary architecture is represented by the Metropol Parasol, the Setas, a wood and concrete pergola 150 metres long and about 26 metres high in the Plaza de la Encarnación.

Sevilla is also a city of fiestas. Holy Week (Semana Santa) is a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest, and the Feria de Abril usually starts two weeks later and lasts six days, from Tuesday to Sunday. It opens with the «alumbrao», the lighting of the entrance gate and the fairground with more than 200,000 light bulbs, and ends with fireworks on the last night.

To get there, the EA city bus line links the airport with the city, Santa Justa has been the main railway station since 1991, and metro line 1, opened in 2009, runs through 21 stations in four municipalities of the metropolitan area.

Things to do

Must-see places

1. Catedral de Sevilla: Gothic church with Renaissance additions, a World Heritage Site since 1987.
2. Real Alcázar: walled palace complex with Islamic, Mudéjar and Gothic parts.
3. Plaza de España: work by Aníbal González (1914–1929) for the Ibero-American Exposition.
4. Parque de María Luisa: Sevilla's first urban park, opened in 1914.
5. Torre del Oro: Almohad albarrana tower from 1220–1221 beside the Guadalquivir.
6. Metropol Parasol (Setas de Sevilla): wood and concrete pergola in the Plaza de la Encarnación.
7. Mercado de Triana: food market on the Plaza del Altozano, with a market on the site since 1823.