Where to Stay in Sevilla, Andalusia

What is Sevilla known for?

Sevilla is known for the Giralda, the Real Alcázar, and the flamenco quarters on both banks of the Guadalquivir. The cathedral swallowed a mosque. Catedral de Sevilla went up on the Almohad prayer hall after 1248, kept the minaret as its bell tower, and grew into the largest Gothic church raised anywhere, with Columbus buried inside.

Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril still order the year, and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla keeps the Murillo and Zurbarán canvases.

What are the main landmarks in Sevilla?

Sevilla ranges its monuments along the Guadalquivir, from the Catedral de Sevilla and the Giralda to the Torre del Oro. The Real Alcázar adjoins them. Mudéjar courtyards, Almohad walls, and the Torre Blanca run behind its gate, while the Archbishop's Palace and the Iglesia del Divino Salvador hold the baroque corners of the old town.

Across the Guadalquivir the Castillo de San Jorge lies under the Triana market, and the Isla Mágica park occupies the old Cartuja island. Painting fills the Hospital de la Santa Caridad and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla.

What is the history of Sevilla?

Sevilla was Roman Hispalis before it was anything else. Itálica stood a short way up the Guadalquivir and gave Rome the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, whose statues and mosaics now fill the Museo Arqueológico de Sevilla. The Almohads walled the city and raised the minaret that became the Giralda.

Ferdinand III took it in 1248. The Reconquest turned mosque into cathedral, and the Christian city kept the Mudéjar craftsmen who rebuilt the Real Alcázar for Pedro I a century later. The Americas made the rest.

A royal monopoly on the Indies trade ran through the Casa de Contratación from 1503, and silver, cochineal, and cacao came up the Guadalquivir to a city that outgrew every other in Spain. The Hospital de las Cinco Llagas and the Hospital de la Santa Caridad went up on that money, and Murillo, Zurbarán, and Valdés Leal painted for the chapels it built. Silt beat the port.

The river channel shoaled, Cádiz took the fleet in the eighteenth century, and Sevilla shrank back to a provincial capital until the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 rebuilt its southern edge. Expo 92 came next. The Cartuja island took the fairground that became Isla Mágica, and the Santa Justa line cut the run to Madrid to a morning.

Where is Sevilla?

Sevilla lies on the Guadalquivir in the flat heart of Andalusia, far enough inland that seagoing ships must climb the river to reach it. The city has no hills. Its ground is river silt, ringed by the vega farmland and the olive country beyond, with the Sierra Morena a low grey line to the north and the marshes of Doñana downstream toward the Atlantic.

Triana holds the west bank alone.

What is the climate of Sevilla?

The Guadalquivir depression traps summer heat over Sevilla. Hot air pools in the flat valley between the Sierra Morena and the coastal ranges, and July and August settle into a dry glare that empties the streets between two and six. Patios and awnings answer it.

Winter is mild and green, with Atlantic fronts running up the valley from Doñana to bring most of the year's rain between November and March, and frost almost unknown on the vega. Orange blossom marks the turn.

How do you get to Sevilla?

Sevilla is reached most easily by the AVE line into Santa Justa station. That was the first high-speed track in Spain, opened for Expo 92, and it still runs to Madrid faster than any flight door to door. Flights land at San Pablo.

The airport sits northeast of the city on the A-4, the SE-30 rings the whole of it, and Metro Line 1 crosses under the river from Nervión out to the Aljarafe.