After the Sherry Maratón: Seville
The Route: Jerez → Seville → Seville Airport Logistics: Train from Jerez to Seville Santa Justa, about an hour. Two nights in the centre, then the airport bus. Marathon Month: April Duration: 2 nights
Jerez station ──(about 1 hr train)──> Seville Santa Justa (2 nights)
│
Seville Airport (SVQ) ◄──(about 35 mins EA bus)──┘
The Sherry Maratón brings most overseas runners through Seville on the way in, and the city is the natural place to spend two slow days on the way out. Its sights are close together in a flat centre, and the heat that makes it hard work in summer has not arrived.
April in Seville is one of the best months of the year: afternoons in most years in the mid to high twenties, cool mornings, and the orange trees in flower or just past it, scenting the streets. The Feria de Abril in 2027 runs until 18 April, race day, so the city is just recovering from its biggest week when runners arrive. Hotel prices can stay high for the first night after the fair; book early.
Trains from Jerez to Seville Santa Justa take about an hour, several times a day; book at renfe.com. Santa Justa is about 25 minutes' walk or a short taxi ride from the cathedral.
Night One: The cathedral and the Alcázar
Seville Cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches in the world, built on the site of the city's great mosque. Its bell tower, the Giralda, was the mosque's minaret, and it is climbed by a series of ramps wide enough for a horse, not by stairs, which makes it possible on tired legs if taken slowly. Buy tickets online and allow at least an hour.
The Real Alcázar across the square is the royal palace, begun in the fourteenth century by Christian kings in the Moorish style, with tiled halls, courtyards and large gardens of fountains and orange trees on level paths. Timed tickets sell out, so book in advance.
Where to stay. Hotel Casa 1800, a converted nineteenth-century house in the Santa Cruz quarter, is a few minutes' walk from the cathedral and the Alcázar. Hotel Alfonso XIII, the grand hotel built for the 1929 exhibition, is beside the university and the park, a short flat walk from both.
Where to eat. El Rinconcillo, near the church of Santa Catalina, has been serving tapas since 1670; order spinach with chickpeas and a glass of manzanilla at the wooden bar.
Night Two: The park and the river
The Parque de María Luisa, south of the centre, was laid out for the 1929 Ibero-American Exhibition. Its paths are flat and shaded by tall trees, with tiled benches and fountains. At its edge, the Plaza de España is a huge semicircular building with a canal and a tiled bench for every Spanish province. Allow two hours to wander slowly.
From the park, the riverside path along the Guadalquivir to the Torre del Oro is level and paved, and across the Triana bridge the old potters' and sailors' quarter of Triana has its own market and tile workshops.
Triana's covered market, the Mercado de Triana, sits at the far end of the bridge on the site of the old Castle of San Jorge, headquarters of the Inquisition; a small free museum in its basement tells that story. The market stalls and bars are good for a late breakfast. Calle Betis, along the Triana riverbank, looks back across the water at the Torre del Oro and the bullring of La Maestranza, and is flat all the way.
For an indoor morning, the Museo de Bellas Artes, in a former convent on Plaza del Museo, holds the city's great collection of Murillo and Zurbarán, arranged round tiled cloisters on a single main floor with a lift. It closes on Mondays; check hours before planning the second day round it.
The Metropol Parasol, the huge timber canopy over Plaza de la Encarnación known locally as Las Setas, has a walkway on top reached by lift, with a view across the rooftops to the Giralda. It is a better idea at dusk than at midday.
Where to eat. Bodega Santa Cruz, on Calle Rodrigo Caro in the Santa Cruz quarter, is a busy standing bar with small plates chalked up on the wall; good for an early, informal evening.
Getting to Seville Airport
The EA airport bus runs from the city centre, including stops near the cathedral, the Plaza de Armas bus station and Santa Justa station, to Seville Airport (SVQ) in about 35 minutes, every 20 to 30 minutes through the day. A taxi takes about 20 minutes. Check the timetable at tussam.es for early flights.