Seville, Spain

The second stop in our trip to Spain, Seville is one of the main reasons I decided we should go – all the beautiful Moorish architecture and colorful tiles really appealed to me even though it’s a bigger city and I usually prefer smaller towns. Just like I mentioned in my Barcelona post, we bought some tickets in advance for Seville to ensure we were seeing everything we wanted to. We stayed in a central location and loved our hotel. It was a really short walking distance to almost everything we wanted to see and the service was lovely. 

Royal Alcázar: Practically the entire reason I wanted to come to Spain, the Royal Alcázar cannot be missed. It’s a beautiful 10th century palace (revamped in the 14th century) and still serves as a royal palace today. I booked tickets in advance for this and chose the opening time (9am) for multiple reasons. I really wanted to get some great pictures here and figured it would be less crowded earlier on and the light would be better. I could have easily spent all day here. There were beautiful tiles around every corner, amazingly ornate details in all of the rooms and large gardens to stroll through. We skipped all of the rooms near the front initially and went straight to the gardens and some of the further away rooms to have them all to ourselves and then worked our way back. 

Casa de Pilatos: Another beautiful site to see, but far less crowded than the Royal Alcázar. We skipped the upstairs tour and spent our time enjoying the main downstairs area and gardens. We had the place almost to ourselves because the upstairs tours only happen at certain times and as we were leaving there was a line around the block to get in!

Cathedral: This is the world’s largest Gothic church and is truly impressive. We were able to skip the long line, having purchased our tickets in advance so well worth the pre-planning.

Plaza de España: No tickets needed, Plaza de España is another iconic site for Seville. We got up at sunrise to walk over and enjoy it in better lighting and with less crowds, but I was still surprised at how many people had the same idea as us. It wasn’t as crowded as I imagine it would be during the day, but it wasn’t nearly as empty as I was expecting. 

The one thing we didn’t get to on our list that I really wish we’d had time for was a flamenco show.  

Town of Carmona

On our list of things we wanted to do, staying in a parador was high on the list. Paradors are Spanish hotels located in converted historic buildings like monasteries or castles. They’re typically outside of big cities so finding one that could fit into our travel plans was a little more challenging than I expected. We ended up deciding on 2 nights at Parador de Carmona, a hotel built on the remains of a 14th century Moorish fortress and only 30 minutes outside of Seville. 

If I’m being honest, the town wasn’t all too interesting, but the hotel was beautiful and a great place to relax. The restaurant had good food and it was nice to move at a slower pace compared to the earlier part of our trip which was pretty packed with lots of activities.

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