These are the twelve things I do differently in Seville after four visits, two of them in August and one in the week before Christmas. The list assumes you land on Friday morning and leave on Sunday evening, that you walk everywhere, and that you would rather see one courtyard twice than queue for three. Prices and hours are the ones I paid or read on the day, in euros.
How I split the two days
Saturday belongs to the old town and Sunday to Triana and the park, because the cathedral side turns unbearable after noon and Triana is only honest before eleven. Nothing here needs a car, and the single booking that must exist before you fly is the Alcazar.
- Saturday: Alcazar at opening, cathedral after it, Santa Cruz late in the afternoon, tapas in the square by nine.
- Sunday: Triana market before ten, the river walk, then Maria Luisa park and the Plaza de Espana at four.
Twelve tips, in the order they hit you
- Book the Alcazar before you leave home. Timed entry for weekend mornings sells out a fortnight ahead, and the slot left at the door is late afternoon at best, which is exactly when the stone courtyards are hottest.
- Enter Santa Cruz through a side gate. The main squares fill with groups from ten, and the same streets empty out again an hour later.
- Walk with a bottle in your hand. The fountains in the park refill mine twice, and a shop price for water doubles within three blocks of the cathedral.
- Plan nothing between two and five. Kitchens close, courtyards bake, and the two hours are better spent sitting in a shaded bar than walking between sights.
- Order at the bar, one plate at a time. The table menu is the slower way to eat, and the dish that is actually good today is the one on the counter.
- Take the fixed lunch rather than the dinner. The same kitchen charges 14 euros for three courses at one in the afternoon and 26 for the first dish at nine.
- Skip the flamenco package with dinner attached. A seat at a small tablao runs 20 to 25 euros for the show alone, and the room that sells food first is the room where the guitar is background noise.
- Measure the walk before you book dinner. Triana is ten minutes from the old town across the bridge, and the difference matters more after the meal than before it.
- Use the tram on the long leg. The line from the centre to the park costs less than a taxi and saves you twenty minutes of pavement in the heat.
- Check the free windows instead of paying at the first door. Several museums open without charge for part of the day, and the cathedral queue peaks between eleven and one.
- Keep Sunday morning slow. The market opens early, the river path is empty, and this is the part of the weekend you will describe afterwards.
- End on the Guadalquivir rather than in a shop. The walk along the water at eight in the evening is cool, free and full of people who live there, and it is the last thing I do before the airport bus.
Two hours I always put back in
The timetable above looks full until you add back the two windows that make a weekend feel unhurried, and neither of them costs anything. I keep one early and one late, and I use both on every trip, in every season.
The first window is the hour between seven and eight in the morning, when the lanes of Santa Cruz are still wet from the cleaning carts and the light comes sideways down the walls. I walk it from whichever door I slept behind and finish at a bar on the Plaza del Salvador, where a coffee with toast runs about 2.50 euros and the only other people standing are the ones already on their way to work. The second window is the hour after nine at night, when the pavement tables fill again and the cathedral square finally turns comfortable.
- Morning loop: Santa Cruz, the corner of Mateos Gago, then down towards the river and back up the same way.
- Evening option: the path along the Guadalquivir, which stays cool long after the stone has let go of the day.
- Either loop ends sitting down, because that is part of the plan rather than a break from it.
These are also the hours where the photographs come from, since everything between eleven and six leaves you shooting into shadow. If I had to keep only one of the two, it would be the morning one, because the streets empty again by nine and the rest of the day is louder wherever you stand.