Seville is the capital of Andalucia and the one city to come to if there is time for only one. Its cathedral, the Alcázar and the Archivo de Indias form a single UNESCO site, listed together in 1987.
The cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and on completion it took from Hagia Sophia the title of the largest cathedral anywhere. The claim that it is the third largest church in the world, which circulates widely, does not survive comparison.
Begun in 1401 and substantially finished by 1506, with the crossing lantern rebuilt after a collapse and completed in 1519. So it is a fifteenth-century building, not the sixteenth-century one older accounts describe.
There are fifteen doors across four façades. The one to look for is the Puerta del Perdón, which keeps the horseshoe arch of the mosque the cathedral replaced — a far better detail than the comparison with Notre-Dame in Paris that older accounts make, which does not hold up in any particular.
The bell tower was built as the minaret of the Almohad mosque, commissioned in 1171 and finished in March 1198. The Renaissance belfry on top was added between 1558 and 1568 by Hernán Ruiz the Younger, and the bronze weathervane that crowns it, the Giraldillo, is what gives the tower its name.
It is climbed by 35 ramps rather than stairs, which is the single best thing about it: they were built broad and shallow enough for pack animals and riders to carry materials and the muezzin up. It stands around 95 metres to the top of the weathervane; the 104 metres often quoted is not supported.
Generally described as the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe, and the description is fair — the upper floors, the Cuarto Real Alto, remain the monarch's official residence in Seville and are used on royal visits.
The core is Mudéjar, rebuilt by Pedro I in the 1360s, with Gothic and Renaissance work around it and a little Baroque in the gardens. Older accounts list Baroque among the principal styles, which overstates a minor element.
In the gardens, the Estanque de Mercurio began as an Islamic water cistern. The Baños de Doña María de Padilla are a Gothic vaulted cistern beneath the Patio del Crucero, from Alfonso X's palace — named after her rather than built for her, whatever the name suggests. The early twentieth-century garden older accounts call the "New Garden" is the Jardín Inglés; there is no garden of that name.
The Alcázar stood in for the Water Gardens of Dorne in Game of Thrones, filmed here in 2014 and used again the following season. Themed tours are sold; the often-repeated claim that the series transformed visitor numbers is not supported by much beyond a two per cent bump the year of the shoot.
Booking. Entry is by dated, timed half-hour slot with a cap of a little over a hundred per slot, and peak dates go weeks ahead. The Cuarto Real Alto is a supplement with its own timed audio-guided slot, and missing it means missing it.
Not in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, whatever older accounts say — it stands on its own small plaza some six hundred metres north-east of it, in the Santa Catalina and Santiago quarter. The confusion sends a good many visitors into the wrong part of the old town.
Begun in 1483 and largely finished through the sixteenth century, it is still the Seville residence of the Dukes of Medinaceli. The lower galleries are lined with Roman sculpture brought from the ruins of Itálica outside the city — Roman rather than the "Greek and Roman" usually claimed. A small Goya bullfight scene hangs upstairs, along with Sebastiano del Piombo and Tintoretto.
The ground floor and the upper floor are separate tickets, and the upper floor is seen only on a short guided tour.
Correctly the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla — the word "Provincial", which older accounts include, has been dropped. It opened in 1841, in the former Convento de la Merced Calzada, and its collection came largely from the monastic seizures of the 1830s.
Zurbarán, Murillo and Valdés Leal are the strength, and the galleries run around three courtyards. It is often described as Spain's second gallery after the Prado, which is a tourism formulation rather than a measured ranking, but it is a very good museum and quiet. Closed on Mondays.
Built for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 to Aníbal González's design, and restored at the end of the 2000s. It remains free to walk into. A council proposal in 2024 to enclose it and charge non-residents ran into objections on the grounds of its protected status and has not been implemented.
Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril two weeks later both fill the city completely. The Feria is not reliably in April despite the name — it follows Holy Week, so in late-Easter years it falls in May. General practicalities for the region are on the Andalucia page.