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Twelve memorable things to do on a short visit to Seville

Great local wine, fantastic traditional tapas, and a wealth of artistic and cultural activities to enjoy, there's plenty you can fit in during a two or three day visit to Andalusia's majestic capital.

Published: 6 May 2019 12:15 CEST
Updated: 16 May 2022 13:15 CEST

Twelve memorable things to do on a short visit to Seville

Taking a relaxing boat ride around the incredible Plaza de España, just one of the ways to have fun in Seville. Photo: Shai Pal/Unsplash

From the largest Gothic cathedral in the world to taking in an authentic flamenco show, here’s the lowdown of 12 essential experiences to have in Seville.

1. Marvel at the Cathedral

No trip to Seville would be complete without a visit to the city’s iconic Cathedral. Officially the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, the sheer size of the building alone makes it worth exploring. Once inside, you can appreciate the detail and intricacy of the decoration, with no corner left unadorned. Also, don’t miss out on the chance to head up the Giralda tower, which was the minaret from when the building was originally a mosque. From the top, you can take in some incredible views of Seville – not to be missed!

View from the Giralda tower. Photo: Tom Podmore/Unspalsh

2. Lose yourself in the Barrio de Santa Cruz

With a huge selection of beautifully decorated, narrow streets, the Barrio de Santa Cruz is the perfect place to explore while visiting Seville. Originally the Jewish Quarter of the city, the area’s maze-like structure makes it tricky to maneuver, but don’t let that stop you. There are amazing squares, such as Plaza de Doña Elvira, to discover and beautiful, hidden corners of Seville to enjoy.

An Andalusian patio in ‘el barrio de Santa Cruz’. Photo: Jl FilpoC/Wikipedia CC BY 4.0

3. Experience the passion and artistry of an authentic flamenco show

As the home of flamenco, Andalucia is the perfect place to experience a traditional, authentic show. However, with such a huge amount of shows available in Seville, and a number of them admittedly geared towards tourists, you have to ensure you choose carefully when deciding on the best place to go. Casa del Flamenco provides a comprehensive overview of flamenco culture with their hour-long shows in a historic, Andalusian patio. With some of Spain’s most accomplished artists performing each night, you’ll not soon forget your Seville flamenco experience.

Flamenco – The passion and power of an authentic flamenco show will stay with you long after you leave Seville. Photo: Devour Tours

4. Savour some of Seville’s best traditional tapas

After a huge surge in the popularity of modern tapas in Seville, there is no shortage of gourmet places to eat. However, while these places certainly provide good food, there is something truly special about stepping into an authentic, off-the-beaten-track tavern to eat among locals. One of our favorite spots is Casa Morales, where you can enjoy everything from spinach and chickpeas to slow-cooked pork cheek, as well as all the thinly sliced cured meats you can handle.

Spinach and chickpeas – Espinacas con garbanzos is one of many typical tapas in Seville that show off the city’s Moorish heritage. Photo: Devour Tours

5. Explore the Moorish history of Seville at the Alcazar Palace

If you are an architecture or history buff, or just appreciate a stroll through some beautiful surroundings, the Real Alcázar is an unmissable stop on your Seville visit. Located just opposite the Cathedral, this Moorish fort which evolved into a Royal Palace is one of the best examples of mudéjar (Moorish & Christian) architecture on the Iberian Peninsula. For fans of TV series Game of Thrones, you may even find some of the Alcázar familiar as this is one of a number of places in Seville where scenes from the show were filmed!

Real Alcazar – From unique architecture to intricate tiles to a stunning collection of gardens—Seville’s Real Alcazar Palace has it all. Photo: Akshay Nanavati/Unsplash

6. Enjoy Seville’s modern side at the Metropol Parasol

Although Seville is a very historic city, it still has a modern side for you to enjoy. The best example of modern architecture in the city is the Metropol Parasol, also known as“Las Setas.”This mushroom-shaped monument is actually the largest wooden structure in the world and caused quite a stir when erected, given its unusual shape and style. However, locals have warmed to it and with carefully excavated Roman ruins to explore underneath and an amazing viewpoint—the best panoramic view of Seville—on top.

The uniquely beautiful Las Setas monument doubles as one of our favorite spots to enjoy a stunning city view. Photo: Joan Oger/Unsplash

7. Sip some iconic local wines

It may be surprising, given it’s a far cry from the sickly sweet drink often thought of when someone mentions sherry, but it’s actually the bone dry manzanilla that is the most popular sherry wine among locals in Seville! You can’t visit the city without trying some, and the authentic atmosphere at Bar Las Teresas makes it a great place to enjoy it, especially when paired with some delicious jamón Ibérico. Not into dry wines? Why not try another Sevillano specialty wine—vino de naranja! The deliciously sweet orange wine has been available at Taberna Álvaro Peregil since Álvaro’s great grandfather introduced it to the city in 1904.

Sherry and Ham – Two things you simply must try when visiting Seville—bone-dry manzanilla sherry and thinly sliced acorn-fed Iberian ham. Photo: Devour Spain

8. Take in the Seville sun at Plaza de España

There are a number of architectural marvels in Seville to enjoy, but none compare to the beauty of the city’s iconic Plaza de España. Built in the lead up to the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 in the city, the intricate detail of the tilework on this enormous pavilion have made it hugely popular with locals and visitors alike. When visiting the square, don’t miss out on the stunning Maria Luisa park located alongside it, the perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of the city center.

The ornate details of Seville’s Plaza de España are not to be missed. Photo: Alessandra Easterthere/Unsplash

9. Admire Seville’s amazing skyline

With so many beautiful buildings dotted throughout the city of Seville, it’s only natural there would be plenty of places with an amazing view in the city. And what better way to take in the Sevillano skyline than with a drink in hand? Head up to the rooftop terrace of the Hotel Doña María for an amazing view of the cathedral, especially striking at sunset!

Photo: sepavone/Depositphotos

10. Venture over the river to Triana

While there are plenty of things to do in the center of the city, a trip to Seville isn’t complete without crossing the bridge to visit the Triana neighborhood. Known for its bullfighters, vibrant flamenco scene and delicious tapas, there is a sense of pride unique to the area and the people who call Triana home. Also, Triana is the perfect place to buy some beautiful ceramics, a great souvenir to take home from Seville.

Fishermen relax next to the Guadalquivir, with Triana neighbourhood in the background. Photo: 5888244/Pixabay

11. Wander through a local food market

Visiting a local food market is a great way to experience local foodie culture for yourself. At Seville’s food markets, you don’t just buy top quality, fresh produce, you can also step into one of the bars in the market and enjoy authentic tapas made from the market’s finest ingredients. A visit to the Mercado de la Feria, Seville’s oldest food market, gives you the perfect combination of both sides of market culture in the city.

Triana’s market is the perfect place to buy and eat some delicious local produce. Photo: Lothar Boris Piltz/Unsplash

12. Discover the artistic heritage of Seville

Birthplace of artists such as Velázquez, Murillo and Zurbarán, it’s not surprising that Seville boasts one of the most significant art collections in all of Spain. These amazing pieces can be found inside the Fine Arts Museum, a stunning building complete with a typical Andalusian patio.

This article was written by Devour Tours , a company founded by Spanish food lovers as a way to connect hungry travellers with the local, family-run businesses that make amazing food. Devour Tours offers award-winning, fun and delicious food tours and tapas tours in San Sebastián, Seville, Barcelona and Madrid.

Good tourist, bad tourist: How to travel responsibly in Spain

Barcelona resident David Mar doesn’t travel, but he thinks about tourism every day.

Tourists crowd the buses — essential for movement in a hilly neighbourhood like his. They leave trash for residents to discover in the morning. They shout and sing at night and wander drunkenly through the residential streets, ambling into backyards and pulling down laundry on clotheslines.

“It’s a disturbance that goes from when you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night,” he told The Local Spain. “You don’t feel welcome in your own neighbourhood.”

Mar lives in Turó de la Rovira, on a 262-metre hill that towers over the city.

A viewpoint atop the hill called Los Bunkers de Carmel has gone viral on TikTok for its sweeping city views, bringing hordes of tourists to come drink wine, watch the sunset, and sometimes party into the early morning.

But for the residents of the surrounding Carmel neighbourhood — among Barcelona’s poorest — the consequences of this tourist explosion have been severe.

Mar was involved in a physical altercation with a group of four Australians, after he confronted them for tipping over parked motorcycles.

And last June a 76 year-old man was assaulted by a group of seven English-speaking youths after he tried to stop them from jumping a fence that had been put up around the Bunkers.

Such events are commonplace in Carmel, Mar says, with the post-pandemic massification of tourism provoking an unstoppable flow of Instagram-like-hungry travellers, fuelled by an increasingly lucrative industry whose interests often conflict with those of local residents.

“It collides directly with the most basic rights of those who live here,” Mar says. “Our right to housing, our right to transportation, our right to rest peacefully.”

With some 1.3 billion international arrivals globally in 2023, more people are travelling for pleasure than ever before in human history.

But as excessive crowds stress infrastructure and locals find themselves pushed out of their own communities, prevailing attitudes towards travel must be reconsidered if global tourism is to continue growing sustainably.

“Tourism isn’t a right, it’s a decision that you make,” Mar says. “And if you do it, you must be aware of the consequences it can generate.”

A couple uses a selfie stick to take a picture next to a banner warning tourists on drought alert in Catalonia, near Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

Empathy abroad

Bartolomé Deyá Tortella, a researcher and the Dean of Tourism Faculty at the University of the Balearic Islands, says few tourists consider such consequences.

Instead, they embrace their inner hedonist and focus their vacation time on maximum pleasure for minimum price. This mindset might cause a tourist to forget their values and do things they’d never do at home.

“We all become capitalists when we practice tourism,” Deyá told The Local. “You think, ‘I paid for this, I’m on vacation, I’m having my moment of pleasure, I worked the whole year for it.”

Such thinking could explain why someone might respect quiet hours in their own neighbourhoods, but shout drunkenly in the streets late at night while on vacation.

Or why on a trip to Mallorca, where Deyá lives and works, a tourist might feel compelled to take a 10-minute shower — despite the water-stressed Mediterranean island’s near-drought conditions — while residents routinely shower in a minute or less.

Failure to consider saving water or respecting quiet hours comes down to lack of empathy, Deyá says, and our tendency to other the people whose communities we enter while traveling.

“Act as if you were in your own home,” he says. “If when you’re in your own city you don’t shout in the street because you know your neighbours are sleeping, why do it when you’re traveling?”

Social sustainability

Much has been said about environmental sustainability, but it’s easy to forget the social impacts of travel; how our interactions with local people and economies can change that society.

“When every one of us travels, it implies that the places where we came from are transformed, the places we pass through are transformed, and obviously, so are the places we arrive to,” Manuel de la Calle Vaquero, Vicedean of the Faculty of Commerce and Tourism at Complutense University of Madrid, told The Local Spain.

With this in mind, the most sustainable way to travel is by using one’s presence to positively impact the local community.

Or in other words, to leave a place better than you found it.

“When you jump on a plane, it’s important to make sure that trip counts for something positive,” says Justin Francis, founder of Responsible Travel, a holiday company that collaborates with local partners to plan socially and environmentally sustainable vacations.

“I advise people to fly less, keep short trips flight-free – and, when you do fly, stay in a place longer and travel in a way that does as much good as possible,” Francis says.

Anti-gentrification banners addressing were already hanging from balconies in Barcelona back in 2017. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

Neighbourhood colonisers

One of the most significant ways in which tourism can alter the social landscape is through accommodation.

Not long ago, tourists and residents in Spain did not typically mix, with tourists sticking near their hotels, rarely straying into residential zones, Deyá says.

But today’s tourist has matured, and now expects novelty; an “authentic” experience that they can convince themselves distinguishes them from the thousands of other tourists expecting the same.

Nowadays they live among residents, in apartments instead of hotels, utilizing short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, which has led to the dissolution of boundaries between a city’s tourist and local zones.

Vaquero describes this new kind of tourist as the “anti-tourism” tourist, in the sense that they’re not interested in the sort of tourism promoted by governments and travel agencies, but instead consider themselves the explorers of new “authentic” destinations outside the typical tourist sphere.

“The one who wants to leave the traditional tourist circuit and supposedly goes looking for ‘authentic’ neighbourhoods — that tourist is obviously the coloniser,” Vaquero says.

The boom in short-term vacation rentals has led to what’s been dubbed the “Airbnb effect” in neighbourhoods worldwide, in which residents are slowly replaced by a constant flux of tourists. For landlords, vacation rentals can be far more lucrative than renting to residents, thus incentivizing them to evict long-term tenants in order to list their properties on Airbnb.

This is exactly what happened to Emanuele Dal Carlo. His landlord didn’t want to renew the lease on his small Venice apartment because they could make more renting it out on Airbnb. Like so many other Venetians, Dal Carlo had to move to the mainland.

To better understand the cultural erosion he saw happening to his city as a result of Airbnb, Dal Carlo enlisted the help of researchers to conduct a study, through which he discovered only 2,000 of the 3,300 Airbnbs in the city were registered with the government, and many were rented by foreign hosts with zero connection to Venice.

This means that much of the money tourists spend on accommodation never lands on the ground, thus eliminating any potential benefit to the local economy.

“What’s wrong is that the money available from tourism is not fairly distributed between workers and residents,” Dal Carlo says.

Dal Carlo now runs Fairbnb, an ethical Airbnb alternative which promotes “community-powered tourism.” Hosts are certified local, and the platform fees are put directly towards a social project in the local community, like food redistribution or sustainable energy initiatives.

As a tourist, the best way to avoid feeding the problem is by avoiding short term rentals when possible, Dal Carlo says, and instead booking accommodations with local businesses, like small independent hotels or traditional bed and breakfasts.

And if you absolutely must use Airbnb, Dal Carlo suggests booking with local hosts.

“If you’re traveling to Venice and your host is from Finland, ask yourself some questions,” he says.

An elderly local man on crutches waits to cross as a group of tourists using Segways squeeze by and into the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

Whose fault?

In Spain, anti-tourism protests have crescendoed in recent weeks. The travel industry, it seems, has grown beyond its means, and locals are taking note.

To some degree, the problem can be traced to poor planning on the part of local governments and the unchecked expansion of algorithmic platforms like Airbnb.

Deyá points out that many government entities in Spain have welcomed tourist money, pursuing marketing campaigns without investing in adequate preparation.

“Tourism is the typical sector where many governments say, ‘ok, let’s leave it, because this works. Don’t touch it,’” Deyá says. “But there’s been no planning, there’s been no strategy.”

Back in Barcelona, the city’s public transport authority was involved in the promotion of the Carmel bunkers through its Bus Turistic webpage, encouraging tourists to come see the “spectacular views over Barcelona.”

The promotion was taken down on April 16th after continued anti-tourism protests from the Turó de la Rovira neighbourhood council, of which Mar is a member.

But as is the case with so many industries in a crowded world full of contradictions, the individual cannot be absolved of all responsibility, as one’s choice to participate in harmful systems enables their continuation.

No law or tourist tax will compel tourists to act with empathy, and the absence of such regulations should not be used to justify one’s bad behaviour abroad.

“The problem is that we’re hypocrites, and we think that it’s someone else who has to solve the problem,” Deyá says.

Mar, who’s never been much of a traveller himself, is no longer interested in traveling internationally after seeing what tourism has done to his city.

“So much of my city has become inhospitable for residents,” he says. “Because we’re truly suffering from it here in Barcelona, the concept of tourism disgusts me more and more.”

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