From the great Cathedral to the rambling Alcázar gardens, Seville (a.k.a. Sevilla) is a stunning slice of Spanish culture.


Chief among Seville's wonders is the Alcázar, where Seville rulers have wielded their power from the time of the Romans. The Alcázar used to be merely a palace, albeit a huge one enlarged to feed the sensual needs of ruler al-Mu'tadid, who needed space to house his harem of eight hundred women and to hold his grisly garden of flowers planted in the skulls of his enemies.


Under the Almohads, the complex was turned into a citadel, stretching to the twelve-sided Torre del Oro on the bank of the Guadalquivir. Parts of the Almohad walls, like the Torre del Oro, still survive today, as does the brilliant minaret known as the Giralda, used to call faithful Moors to prayer.
So venerated was the Giralda that the Moors tried to destroy it before the Christian conquest of the city, but failed, and the Giralda became the bell tower of the Christian Cathedral and even today dominates the Seville skyline. The Cathedral itself is noted for its magnificent 15th-century Gothic architecture and hand-carved wooden alterpiece.


But Seville has other attractions without such grand history. Two great festivals set the population afire each year: the Semana Santa, during the week before Easter, and the April Fair, which lasts a week at the end of the month. The April Fair is particularly raucous, with flamenco dancers in colorful folk costumes lining the streets and daily bullfighting competitions. The fictional spirits of Carmen and Don Juan, who originated in Seville, are invoked for delirious fair-goers.

"Seville," wrote Byron, "is a pleasant city, famous for oranges and women." And for its heat, he might perhaps have added, since SEVILLA 's summers are intense and start early, in May. But the spirit, for all its nineteenth-century chauvinism, is about right. Sevilla has three important monuments and an illustrious history, but what it's essentially famous for is its own living self - the greatest city of the Spanish south, of Carmen, Don Juan and Figaro, and the archetype of Andalucian promise. This reputation for gaiety and brilliance, for theatricality and intensity of life, does seem deserved. It's expressed on a phenomenally grand scale at the city's two great festivals - Semana Santa (in the week before Easter) and the Feria de Abril (which starts two weeks after Easter Sunday and lasts a week). Either is worth considerable effort to get to.

Sevilla is also Spain's second most important centre for bullfighting , after Madrid. Its elegance, charm, and wealth are mostly based on food processing, shipbuilding, construction and a thriving tourist industry. The total refurbishment of the infrastructure boosted by the 1992 Expo - including impressive new roads, seven bridges, a high-speed rail link and a revamped airport.

Sevilla's most famous present-day native son is the former prime minister, Felipe González , who led the Socialist administration that governed Spain for fourteen years until his defeat in 1996. Another, more bizarre Sevillano is one Gregorio XVII , who calls himself the true pope; in defiance of his excommunication by the Vatican, "Pope Greg" is leader of a large ultra-reactionary order which has made the dead Franco a saint and has built an extensive new "Vatican" in the countryside to the south of the city.

The BEST of

Fería de Abril Sevilla's week-long fiesta is Andalucía at its celebratory best, with a vast fair of flamenco dance tents, and horsemen and women dressed to kill.

La Giralda One of the city's principal landmarks is la Giralda - a colossal tower originally erected by the Moors as a mosque minaret and later converted into a bell tower for the world's largest Gothic cathedral. You get an incredible view from the top.

María Luisa Park Beat the heat of the afternoon and steel yourself for a long night on the town with a nap in Sevilla's elegant María Luisa Park. There's plenty of cool shade to doze in, and the dreamy tone is accentuated by the trickle of fountains.

Bar Modesto As the city which claims to have invented tapas, Sevilla knocks spots off the competition. A good place to pick up the trail is Bar Modesto , in the Santa Cruz district, which offers just about every tapas imaginable.

La Carbonería Outside Feria week, flamenco music is hard to find in Sevilla, with most venues offering tacky "shows" instead of the real thing. La Carbonería is an exception - a quirky bar north of Santa Cruz church which hosts sessions by local gypsy musicians most night of the week.

La marcha Nightlife in Sevilla, known for good reason as la marcha (marching), usually means an interminable tapas-bar crawl around Santa Cruz, followed by a session in a nightclub and a mass get-together at dawn in the Plaza San Salvador. Not for the fainthearted.

Google Map of Sevilla