Explore Seville

Seville Cathedral, the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See, is a Gothic cathedral completed in the early 16th century on the site of the city's Almohad mosque, whose minaret survives as the Giralda bell tower, 104.5 metres high. Inside are the gilded main altarpiece, the Royal Chapel and the tomb of Christopher Columbus.

The Plaza de toros de la Real Maestranza is Seville's bullring, owned by the Real Maestranza de Caballería, a noble riding corporation. Built in stages from the mid-18th century and closed in 1881, it seats about 12,000 behind a white and ochre Baroque front on the Paseo de Colón. Audio-guided visits cover the stands, the ring and exhibition rooms.

The General Archive of the Indies fills the former merchants' exchange of Seville, a Renaissance building designed by Juan de Herrera and built in the late 16th century. Founded by Charles III and opened in 1785, it keeps the records of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Asia; visitors see the building and its exhibitions of documents.

Casa de Salinas is a 16th-century private palace in the old town near the Cathedral, built in 1577 by Baltasar de Jaén and owned by the Salinas family since the 20th century. Audio-guided visits show its double-height main courtyard with marble columns, 16th-century plasterwork and Triana tiles, and a 2nd-century Roman mosaic of Bacchus from Italica.

The Royal Alcázar of Seville is a palace complex that grew out of the Islamic citadel begun in the 10th century and was rebuilt after the Castilian conquest of 1248. At its centre is the Mudéjar palace Pedro I built in the 1360s, around the Patio de las Doncellas, with Gothic and Renaissance halls and large gardens beside it.

Setas de Sevilla, designed as the Metropol Parasol by the German architect Jürgen Mayer, is a timber structure of six parasols over the Plaza de la Encarnación, completed in 2011. About 150 by 70 metres and 26 metres high, it shelters a market and the Antiquarium with Roman remains, and walkways on its roof look out over the old town.

The Museum of Fine Arts of Seville occupies the former convent of La Merced Calzada, rebuilt in the early 17th century by Juan de Oviedo, and opened as a museum in 1835. Its galleries and three cloisters hold Spanish art from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, with a large group of Sevillian Baroque paintings by Murillo, Zurbarán and Valdés Leal.

Espacio Exploraterra is a centre of the Nao Victoria Foundation on the Guadalquivir near the Torre del Oro. Its permanent exhibition tells the story of Magellan and Elcano's first voyage around the world with audiovisuals, sets and facsimiles, and visitors can board the Nao Victoria 500, a full-size replica of the ship built in Punta Umbría and launched in 2020.

The Torre del Oro is a twelve-sided watchtower on the bank of the Guadalquivir, built by the Almohads in 1220–1221 to control river access to Seville. A second tier was added in the 14th century and the cylindrical top with its dome in 1760, after the 1755 earthquake. It houses the Navy's maritime museum, with ship models, instruments and charts.

Casa de Pilatos is a palace in Seville built mainly in the 15th and 16th centuries by the Enríquez de Ribera family and still a residence of the Dukes of Medinaceli. It blends the Gothic-Mudéjar tradition with Italian Renaissance forms, around a main courtyard with a fountain, gardens and some 150 designs of 1530s azulejo tiles by Diego and Juan Pulido.

The Palacio de las Dueñas is a palace in central Seville built in the 15th and 16th centuries in a mix of Gothic-Mudéjar and Renaissance styles, and owned by the House of Alba since 1612. Visitors see its arcaded courtyards, gardens and rooms with an art collection of more than 1,400 pieces; the poet Antonio Machado was born here in 1875.

The Church of San Jacinto is the church of a Dominican convent in Triana, rebuilt after the earlier church collapsed in 1730 and opened in 1775, probably to designs by Matías José de Figueroa. Its red and ochre brick front has a Baroque portal and a large oculus; inside are three naves and a dome over the crossing. It hosts the Luminiscence light and music show.

The Plaza de España is a semicircular complex on the edge of the Parque de María Luisa, designed by Aníbal González and built between 1914 and 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. Its brick buildings with two towers enclose a square with a central fountain and a canal crossed by four bridges, lined with tiled benches for the provinces of Spain.

The Parque de María Luisa is Seville's main public park, laid out on former gardens of the Palace of San Telmo that the Infanta María Luisa Fernanda gave to the city in 1893. Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier redesigned it from 1911 for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition, with fountains, ponds, tiled benches, palms and orange trees around the Plaza de España and Plaza de América.

El Palacio Andaluz is a flamenco tablao on the Isla de la Cartuja in Seville, housed in the former Cruzcampo pavilion of the 1992 Universal Exposition. Its café-theatre hall stages a ninety-minute show every evening by a company of more than ten dancers, singers and guitarists, and a small museum of flamenco dresses opens before it.

Seville Aquarium opened in 2014 on the Muelle de las Delicias beside the Guadalquivir. Its route follows the Magellan–Elcano expedition from the Guadalquivir across the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, through some 35 tanks holding more than 400 species, including an oceanarium of about two million litres with a water column nearly nine metres high.

The Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán Stadium in Seville's Nervión district is the home ground of Sevilla FC, opened on 7 September 1958 and named after the former club president. It seats 43,751 spectators and has hosted a 1982 World Cup semi-final, the 1986 European Cup final and the 2022 Europa League final.

Isla Mágica is a theme park on the Isla de la Cartuja in Seville, built on part of the Expo '92 grounds and opened in 1997. Its themed areas recall the Spanish voyages to the Americas, with roller coasters, water rides and shows around a central lake, and the Agua Mágica water park was added beside it in 2014.