Palaces, a cathedral and the city museums
Three of the monuments on this page stand within a hundred metres of one another, and between them they hold a thousand years of the city: a royal palace still in use by the Spanish Royal Family, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and the minaret of the mosque it replaced. Add the nobleman’s house that fixed what a Sevillian courtyard should look like, and the second public art collection in Spain, and you have most of what people come here for. Every visit on this page includes the entrance ticket and an official guide, and goes in without queuing at the box office.
3 tours from €35
These two face each other across the same square, and the Archive of the Indies sits between them. The Alcázar is a working royal palace, the oldest in Europe still in use: Mudejar courtyards, tiled halls and gardens of orange trees, with the upper floor still kept for the Royal Family. The Cathedral was raised on the site of the Aljama mosque and kept two pieces of it, the Patio de los Naranjos and the minaret that became the Giralda, which you climb by ramp rather than stairs.
You can book them separately or together. Each on its own takes about an hour and a half; the combined tour covers both in three and a half hours with priority entry to all three tickets, which is the cheaper way to do it and saves you a second queue. All three pages also offer the same visit with an audio guide instead of a guide, in a small group of no more than twelve, or privately.
Approx. 1 hour 30 minutes
The royal palace at the heart of Seville, still in use after a thousand years: Mudejar courtyards, tiled halls and gardens of orange trees and fountains, with an English-speaking guide and a skip-the-line ticket included.
€39per adultSee details
Approx. 1 hour 30 minutes
One of the largest churches ever built, raised on the site of the old mosque: the tomb of Christopher Columbus, the greatest altarpiece in the Christian world, and the Giralda to climb for the view. Guide and tickets included.
€35per adultSee details
Approx. 3 hours 30 minutes
The three monuments the city is known for in one morning: the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, the Giralda you walk up by ramp, and the royal palace and gardens across the square. Skip-the-line entry to all three and an English-speaking guide.
€65per adultSee details
1 tour from €25
The finest private house in Seville and the one most visitors walk past. Built in the 15th century by the Enríquez de Ribera family, it puts Italian Renaissance and Andalusian Mudejar in the same courtyard and somehow makes them agree: semicircular arches on marble columns, plasterwork that belongs in a mosque, and one of the great collections of 16th-century Sevillian tilework.
It is an hour, it is ten minutes from the Cathedral, and it is the place to see what a wealthy Sevillian actually lived in rather than how a king was received. The visit covers the ground floor and the gardens; the upper floor is still a private residence.
1 tour from €18
After the Prado, this is the most important public art collection in Spain, and it is housed in the old convent of La Merced with its courtyards intact. The heart of it is the Sevillian Baroque — Murillo above all, with Zurbarán and Valdés Leal around him — hung in what used to be the convent church, under a vaulted and frescoed ceiling.
It is indoors, it is rarely crowded, and it is the best plan in the city for a hot afternoon or a wet morning. Ninety minutes with a guide covers what is worth stopping in front of.
Tickets to the Alcázar and the Cathedral are issued in the name of each visitor, so after booking you will be asked for the full name and document number of everyone in the party, and on the day everyone has to carry the original, physical document. A photograph on a phone is not accepted at the door.
Your booking carries an entry slot, which is why there is no queue. It is also why being late costs you the visit: come ten minutes early and the whole group goes in together.
The Alcázar, the Cathedral and the combined tour are each sold in four formats: a guided tour in a regular group, an audio guide you follow at your own pace, a small group of no more than twelve, and a private tour for your party alone. Each page compares them side by side with its own calendar.
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Eduardo BallesterosSeville local and author of the guideComfortably, and most people do — they are two minutes apart on foot. What makes it feel like a whole day is the queueing, not the walking. With timed entry to both, three and a half hours covers them properly, which is what the combined tour does.
In practice, yes. Both the Alcázar and the Cathedral work on timed entry, and the queue at the ticket windows in the middle of the day is the single thing visitors complain about most. Whoever you book with, book before you arrive in the square.
For the Cathedral and the Giralda, yes, and it is enforced at the door: shoulders must be covered. The Alcázar, the Casa de Pilatos and the Museum of Fine Arts have none.
The guided tour has an official guide walking the group through the building and answering questions; the audio guide is the entrance ticket plus a commentary you play on your own phone, so you set your own pace and stay as long as you like. The audio-guided option costs less and, on these products, is not refundable once booked.
Yes, and access is included in every visit to the Cathedral on this page. There are no stairs: a series of wide, shallow ramps built so that a rider could reach the top without dismounting.
On the Casa de Pilatos and the Museum of Fine Arts, cancellation is free up to 24 hours before. On the Alcázar, the Cathedral and the combined tour the tickets are issued in each visitor’s name and bought in advance, so the amount corresponding to the tickets is never refundable; for the rest of the price, more than 48 hours before you are refunded in full, between 48 and 24 hours before you get half, and under 24 hours there is no refund. Every page states its own.
The tours sold on this site are given in English. The same visits also run in Spanish, French and Italian, but each language is a separate departure with its own dates, which is why our calendars show only the English ones. The audio guide lets you choose from five languages, and the small group and private versions let you choose when you book.
All of them, and every tour has a reduced child rate. The shortest is the Casa de Pilatos at an hour; the combined Alcázar and Cathedral tour is three and a half hours, which is a long time for small children on their feet.
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