Seville

Brief information

Seville stands 80 kilometers from the Atlantic, but its harbor is called Spain's only river port. This explains the city's main paradox: it grew not on the seashore, but on the navigable Guadalquivir, on both sides of the river, and it was the river that made it a major trading hub.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, squadrons set out from here for the New World, and galleons returned with gold, silver, and pearls. When the Guadalquivir began to silt up, it became harder for seagoing vessels to moor in Seville, and the city yielded its trading role to Cadiz. Therefore, the old center with the Alcazar, the cathedral, and the Archive of the Indies is better read not as a set of monuments, but as a city where power, faith, and overseas trade were compressed into a single historic core.

What to notice first

In the old part, it is worth comparing the dense urban fabric with the large signs of former power. The maze of narrow streets shows the density of the old Casco Antiguo, while palace-like houses with marble courtyards and more eastern-style houses with flat roofs recall that the city took shape from different architectural habits, not from a single style.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria de la Sede stands on the site of a former mosque, and beside it the Giralda is especially important: the tower began as an earlier structure, then received an added upper section and became a bell tower with 22 bells. On the bank of the Guadalquivir, another kind of memory is offered by the Torre del Oro, a twelve-sided "golden" tower. Together with Triana on the right bank and the steel bridge of 1848, these details help one see Seville as a city where the river is not a backdrop but an axis: it divided districts, connected trade, and left the most legible landmarks along its banks.