Sevilla

Sevilla is a nice and beautiful city. The most interesting in Spain after Barcelona. One of those cities where one day is not enough for a city tour. Old town of Seville is just huge, I can not imagine how not to get lost there. We lived in the old town, in the Apartamentos Las Cruces (booking.com). Recommended if you are 4 people, as apartment has very good location, the price is 90 euros per night, 100 meters to underground parking, 300 meters to Cathedral. We lived in this yard.

Interesting facts about Seville:
  - according to legend, the city was founded by Hercules
  - is the hottest city in Spain, do not visit it in summer
  - Christopher Columbus is buried in the Cathedral of Seville (or maybe his son)

There is no one major tourist attraction in the Seville. The city itself is an attraction, believe me. Before the trip we have defined a few must visit places. At first we walked around the old town, it is incredibly confusing, be sure to have a good map.




Ceramic tiles for Spain a common thing, especially for Andalusia


Stopped for lunch, ordered soup. Yes, this is soup :)


The first thing that we are usually do in the new city - is a visit to the observation deck. In Seville we went to Giralda, a beautiful tower of the cathedral.


Ramp leads to the top


Views of the old town and Alcazar






From the top we saw a garden and went there


Orange garden was founded in 1182. Orange trees in Seville are everywhere, but do not try to eat oranges, they are inedible.




Cathedral of Seville (1401-1519) is the next attraction. It is the world's largest Gothic cathedral.


In this courtyard stands a copy of the wind vane from the bell tower. This copy was replacing the original during the restoration.


On January 2, 1481 in Seville was founded the Spanish Inquisition. It is very dark pages of the city history. On the square in front of the cathedral, on February 4, 1481 occured first in Spain burning of infidels.




Horse-drawn carriages another symbol of Seville.




They have even special parking places.


In 20 meters from the cathedral is the entrance to the Royal Alcazar, a former Moorish palace. Read about the Moors in the general article about Spain. The upper chambers of the Alcázar are now used as the official residence of the Spanish royal family. The place is popular with tourists, so we bought tickets in advance online here.


Royal Alcazar consists of two main parts: the palace and the park.














Only mad person can draw such pictures in the palace :)






We liked Gardens of the Alcazar even more than the palace.












Finished with the Alcazar, we went further in the direction of the square of Spain (Plaza de España). On the way found a lot of interesting things.

Nice tree.


Royal Tobacco Factory


About 20 cats near the Factory.


Alfonso XIII - best hotel in Seville.


Next we came to the square of Spain, which was built for an exhibition in 1929. Perhaps it is the most beautiful square of ​​the country. Now here is the town hall. You could see it in movies such as Lawrence of Arabia (video, 1962), Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones (video, 2002), Dictator (video, 2012).


Here we had a goal to hire a boat and we did this.








Opposite the Plaza de España is a fairly large park of Maria Luisa, which also appeared in 1929. Here we rented a four-wheel bike.




And in the evening once again walked around the cathedral.






Good map of Seville with routes. We walked along the routes 1, 2 and 8.


And here you can download a good map in PDF.

Getting to Sevilla

There is a large international airport. A taxi to the center costs about 20 euros. Also downtown can be reached by bus "Especial Aeropuerto (EA)", travel time is about 30 minutes. Seville is connected by high-speed AVE trains with Madrid (3 hours). There is a night train from Barcelona (11 hours). There are regular bus services to all major cities nearby (Malaga, Granada, Cordoba, Alicante and others).