Seville: Real Alcazar; Hotel Alfonso; cathedrals; bars; tapas; flamenco
Be captivated by Seville, Andalusia’s colourful capital.
01 Andalusia’s capital is compact and easily explored on foot with the most important attractions in or near the city centre. I’d start with Real Alcazar, the city palace, an exquisite example of Moorish, Mudejar and Renaissance artistry so evocative it was inevitable the sprawling complex would seduce location scouts for Game of Thrones. I wonder what they found more captivating? The cool tiled interiors or the romantic gardens where enclosures of clipped orange trees, little courtyards with tinkling fountains, a gnarly maze, ragged with age, and impressive colonnaded tank with water thundering from the top of the palace make for a lush downtown oasis. In the furthest reaches of the garden there are many quiet places to sit or dash off a quick watercolour, a popular pastime for many visitors it seems. Be sure to pre-book tickets online, and visit in the morning, to avoid the queues.
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02 Together with the palace, Seville Cathedral is the biggest drawcard and the queues can be very dispiriting. Drop by the nearby Iglesia del Salvador first and purchase a combination ticket, which costs €9 ($14.50) for both churches, allowing you to sail by the queues at the Seville Cathedral. Built on the site of a 12th-century mosque (the great bell tower is a legacy of the Moors), this cathedral is monumental, with about 80 chapels, acres of intricate carvings by Spanish and Flemish masters, gargantuan altars and soaring, darkened interiors so immense they swallow and silence thousands of tourists at a time as they drift by the tomb of Christopher Columbus. Later, check out the little shops in the old town specialising in trimmings for church robes and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia. I stock up on gorgeous handmade decorative tassels at the century-old Casa Rodriguez (Calle Francos, 35).
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03 La Macarena in the north of the city is a charming neighbourhood often bypassed by tourists and crammed with tiny tapas bars, ancient churches and narrow streets barely a car’s-width wide. With the modern mushroom-shaped Metropol Parasol at one end, and the remnants of the city’s Moorish-era defensive walls at the other, there is much to explore, including dusty antique shops, the glittering shrine to the city’s venerated Virgen de la Esperanza Macarena and Seville’s oldest square, the lively Alameda de Hercules, laid out in 1574 and surrounded by bars and restaurants. Mercado de la Feria is the oldest market in Seville, with a great tapas bar, located next door to a lovely 13th-century church. And strolling near Parliament be sure to drop by the little churros stand, where those delectable fried pastries are cooked to order.
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04 A free evening, and do you fancy an insight into the passionate art form of flamenco? We do and are directed to meet the gorgeous Maria of Not Just a Tourist on the Triana Bridge. She explains the history of flamenco over sherry and tapas before we repair to a dingy bar on the river where 20 hard seats are pushed into a corner around a tiny dance floor. Maria pops out to change and is back in a jiffy to launch the performance with her troupe. We’re so close the rat-tat-a-tat-tat almost up-ends our chairs. Maria explains the context of each dance and song (and even shares some tapas recipes); if you want an even more immersive experience sign up for a flamenco lesson.
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05 Some of the best food is to be found in one of the loveliest rooms in the city. The new Anibal by Origins (Calle Madre de Dios, 8) occupies a sprawling mansion in the heart of the old town. Made over with tremendous flair by new owner Rafael, who plans similar concept restaurants in Madrid and Lisbon, the main dining salon has a French aesthetic with glittering chandeliers and pastel frescoes. Large living tapestries of moss adorn the sleek conservatory bar and upstairs are three elegant guestrooms. The food is excellent and incredible value by Australian standards; be sure to have the utterly delicious salmorejo de centolla (chilled soup with crab).
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06 You could live just on tapas in Seville, where jamon is so ubiquitous I see it dispensed from a vending machine. The atmosphere-laden El Rinconcillo is the city’s oldest tapas bar, dating from 1670, with hams strung like Christmas baubles, patrons gathered about upturned barrels on ancient flagstone floors, walls lined with sherry bottles in burnished casements. There’s a small seating area at the rear of the bar for larger meals (I recommend the fish). Also try Dos de Mayo on Plaza de la Gavidia where, like El Rinconcillo, there’s an English-language menu but that’s about as touristy as it gets. Packed with locals, waiters darting about at lightning speed and counters loaded with great tubs of gamba rosada (red prawns), this classic bar dates from the 19th century.
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07 If in Seville on a Thursday morning, don’t miss Mercado El Jueves. The city’s largest flea market, it has everything including the kitchen sink and plenty of vintage clobber and antiques, plus old cooking pots, paintings and little wooden feet apparently wrested from ancient church statues. The antiques shops in this area are a good hunting ground for old decorative tiles; for new tiles, pop across the Guadalquivir River to the many ceramics stores in Triana.
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08 The handsome Mariatrifulca restaurant, dating from 1922 and perched high above the Guadalquivir River in a little tower on the Triana Bridge, is very busy and a little pricey by city standards, but the sun-drenched rooftop terrace affords gorgeous views across to the bullring. And the tuna sashimi, made from fish caught off the Atlantic coast an hour away, is excellent. Delve into the city’s slow food scene at the gallery-like Contenedor (bookings essential) in La Macarena; the must-have dish is the duck rice. For pastries there’s the elegant Confiteria La Campana, while Mercado Lonja del Barranco is a super-smart food hall with large river terrace, so why not drop in for paella and a slice of fashionable Sevillano life;
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09 The sprawling gardens of Parque Maria Luisa, laid out by the Frenchman Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier to house the fanciful pavilions of the 1929 Iberico-American Exposition, are a delight. The centrepiece is the immense Plaza de Espana with its impressive tiled bridges, benches and murals; the area is crammed on weekends as buskers, flamenco troupes and horse-drawn carriages ply their trade.
BEST BEDS
10 Sipping a cava in Hotel Alfonso XIII’s art deco Bar Americano beneath photos of past patrons, such as (inevitably) Ernest Hemingway, Grace Kelly and Burt Lancaster, is a bit of a time warp, and a very elegant one at that. Built in 1929 for VIPs attending the Iberico-American Exposition, this magnificent building is located near the old tobacco factory made famous in Bizet’s opera Carmen. The lovely gardens and exotic marble lobby are set pieces; the 148 guestrooms, renovated in 2012, reference the city’s Andalusian, Castilian and Moorish roots. The Ena restaurant is headed by an acclaimed Catalonian chef and there are cooking classes to boot. The hotel is a member of Marriott’s Luxury Collection.