Seville is a beautiful city with a fascinating history. The cathedral is magnificent, in particular the tomb of Christopher Columbus.
Seville is a lovely city with beautiful buildings and a very pleasant riverside. The Alcazar has Islamic architecture to rival the Alhambra in Granada.
Seville was an important port being originally a Phoenician and Carthaginian trading colony. Its history is similar to that of other Andalucian towns being occupied first by the Visigoths, then Romans and Moors before the reconquest under Ferdinand and Isabella. It stands on the banks of the Guadalquivir - the longest river in Andalucia.
The Torre del Oro - the Golden Tower - has guarded the river approach to the city since it was built by the Almohad dynasty in the thirteenth century. It would have been one of the two anchor points for a huge chain which could be stretched across the river to try to prevent ships from approaching the city. The top circular level was only added during renovations in the eighteenth century.
South and east of the Cathedral, the Barrio de Santa Cruz was once the Jewish quarter of the city. It retains much of its atmosphere with narrow cobbled alleyways, orange tree-lined plazas, and wrought iron balconies. Almost half of the Barrio is taken up by the Alcazar and its gardens.
This is the most important church in Seville after the Cathedral, and stands on the site of a mosque in lively Plaza San Salvador.
It's baroque, something I'm not keen on, but we bought combined tickets here for the Cathedral and Giralda here, which also included this church, so we had a brief look inside. As expected, it is extremely ornate, especially the gold altarpiece.
The huge Gothic cathedral was built on the site of the city's main mosque, its famous tower - the Giralda - was its minaret. As well as being used to call Muslims to prayer the Giralda was an astronomical observatory. Nothing seems to remain of the original mosque though it is thought to have stood roughly where the Patio de Naranjas - the orange tree patio - now stands within the cathedral precincts. It's a rectangular space planted with many regularly spaced orange trees and a Visigithic fountain in its centre.
There are great views over the Alcazar, the Patio de Naranjas and the wider city from the top of the Giralda.
Having bought our tickets at Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador we discovered we didn't have to join the huge queues, a real bonus! This area of the city was reasonably quiet when we visited in 2001, but in 2022 it was heaving with tourists, something we're finding more and more often around the world.
This massive gothic cathedral took over 80 years to build from 1434 to 1517. For us the highlight was the Tomb of Christopher Columbus, it is absolutely magnificent. Columbus was died and buried in Valladolid in 1506 but the remains were moved four times before arriving at their final place of rest in Seville in 1898.
The four figures represent the four kingdoms of Spain at the time: Castile (the castle, left front), Leon (the lion, right front), Navarra (chains, right rear) and Aragon (simple vertical bars, left rear). The bats on the King of Aragon's clothing are also included in several coats of arms of important cities in Aragon such as Valencia. The scallop shells on the King of Leon's clothing are traditionally associated with St. James, whose pilgrim trail traverses the north of Leon.
On both our visits we climbed the Giralda for the views of the Patio de los Naranjas and out over the city. The patio is planted with 60 Sevillian orange trees and dates from the 12th century mosque.
