1 Day in Seville

The writer Jorge Luis Borges said that you get to know a city by using your feet. By walking, walking, and walking. If you’ve just arrived in Seville, go and sit beside the Guadalquivir. The Torre del Oro is one of the most photogenic emblems of the city. From the Muelle de las Delicias to the modern bridges of Barqueta and Alamillo, you can follow a long riverside walk. As you know, advice is sometimes to be ignored.
The writer Jorge Luis Borges said that you get to know a city by using your feet. By walking, walking, and walking. If you’ve just arrived in Seville, go and sit beside the Guadalquivir. The Torre del Oro is one of the most photogenic emblems of the city. From the Muelle de las Delicias to the modern bridges of Barqueta and Alamillo, you can follow a long riverside walk. As you know, advice is sometimes to be ignored.

1 Day in Seville

The Borges method (city and feet) can be adapted to your own taste. The fleet of City Sightseeing buses, with a stop by the Torre del Oro, offers its tourist routes through a good part of the city and is a practical way to give yourself an idea of all that Seville has to offer

Another way to get to know the reality of the city better is via the river, by getting a boat to one of the marshlands situated in its basin. A renowned painting of Sánchez Coello shows what Seville was sevilike in the sixteenth century.
Along the docks by the Torre del Oro the Galleons from the Indies fleet put in. Seville was formerly the port for and the gate to the New World, and the point of departure and arrival for the greatest naval feat in history.

Bullring, "La Maestranza"

Beside the river and the old docks, right in the heart of the barrio of the Arenal, stands the Maestranza bullring. Which no visitor must miss. From the outside the bullring doesn’t offer the expected circular façade typical of the coliseums of bullfighting. Its unique and authentic architecture shares its rear terraces with private houses.

Triana Brigde.

On the other bank, can be seen the former poor barrio of Triana. The Isabel II bridge, known by the locals as the Triana bridge, leads right into this working-class barrio. You can go there in search of its twisting little streets, the old ‘corralones de vecinos’, communities of neighbours, built around a central patio and the The Royal Parish of the Lady Santa Ana in Calle Pureza, the Capilla de los Marineros (Chapel of the Sailors) where the image of Esperanza de Triana can be found, as well as Calle Betis.

Leaving the river, behind the Maestranza Theatre, there is the Hospital de la Santa Caridad. For centuries it gave protection to the poor and needy. In the presbytery of the church stands the crypt of its founder Don Miguel Mañara. There you can read the words, «Here lie the bones and ashes of the worst man the world has known. Pray for him».
In the Seville of light and colour, Mañara personified, by means of the paintings of final stages of the life of Valdés Leal, a gloomy and baroque sense of death. Only a few steps away is the historic epicentre of the city, the Cathedral and the Giralda, the Archivo de Indias and the Reales Alcazares.
All of this can be seen through the eyes of the present and, also, through the eyes of the past (Past View offers unique glasses that explain the history of the monuments). The Giralda unites two distinct styles: the Islamic almohad (the main part of the tower) and the Christian renaissance (the bell tower).

Reales Alcázares​

Another possibility is to head for the Ayuntamiento (City Hall) and walk along the sinuous, central street of Calle Sierpes. At the start of the street, a tiled sign reminds us of the site of the old Royal Jail. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (immortal author of ´El Quijote’), was once a prisoner there.

Nearby is the Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador, a magnificent building which offers guided tours to visitors. Nearby is the Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador, a magnificent building which offers guided tours to visitors. In the early afternoon (from about two o’clock) the fun starts, and people meet to drink, talk and flirt.

This is the ideal moment to begin to visit some of the bars and restaurants in this guide.

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