You will find in Seville all that a traveler can hope for: Pedestrian shopping streets and quiet alleys; flower-scented gardens, an ancient palace and immense cathedral, hundreds of historic sites; three thousand years of conflict and peace; thrilling evening entertainment; excellent museums; great food and drink, especially the tapas; and rewarding nearby attractions -- the list goes on until you run out of time.
Seville’s city center is divided in various parts: there’s Macarena in the north; El Arenal on the west side; the central shopping zone; and most exciting of all—Santa Cruz with the narrow pedestrian streets and lots of shopping and eating.
There are other districts or barrio in the city after all Seville is the fourth-largest city in Spain with the metropolitan population of about 1.5 million, but for the visitor that central area is your main destination.
Seville’s historic center is quite large—about a mile wide by 1.5 miles long, riddled with countless little alleys and important landmarks. You can discover it on foot if you are selective and seek out the particular attractions that most appeal to your interests. We suggest here an organized plan for doing just that, but it’s sometimes better to push the plan aside and just wander: certain neighborhoods, especially Santa Cruz, are perfect for the aimless stroll, and the downtown pedestrian zone of Seville is a shopper’s paradise.
So let's take a little walking tour in Santa Cruz.
An excellent central location to start your first walking tour is between the Cathedral and Alcazar palace in the Plaza del Triunfo. Many of the town’s main attractions can be easily reached from this central space, making it convenient for you to pick a direction, any direction, and go -- but with such an abundance of choices it can be a little tricky to decide where best to begin. Which way to turn depends on your priorities and the time of day, but no matter; there will be time in the next few days to fit everything in.
Walking is always the best way to see a place and especially when it's so pedestrian-friendly like Seville with so many lanes that are dedicated just to the pedestrian and other narrow lanes where you have very little traffic. You always want to use that walker's rule of thumb, that when you get to an intersection, look around and see which way looks most interesting. That's if you have the time to wander. And it can lead you from one place to the next with great satisfaction. On the other hand if you're in a hurry, you want to follow a little bit more of a specific plan and stick to it and perhaps follow a map.
Next we are going to take you through downtown pointing out some of the major plazas and the lovely pedestrian lanes. Starting out at Plaza Nueva, the most popular place in town.
This central area with the plaza and the streets leading to it is really the heart and the focal point of the city. Notice the broad street that is for pedestrians, bicycles, no cars allowed, and the tram.
Seville has a recently installed modern tram system that really is a great way to move people around. This neighborhood along Constitution Avenue has been entirely transformed by the tram service because now there are no cars going by, you don't have those exhaust fumes and noise, and so there's a lot more room for people throughout. You’ve got the sidewalk restaurants, you’ve got people walking, strolling along, lounging, people-watching, and the street is a major one that connects the cathedral with the City Hall Square, and then beyond, right into the pedestrian shopping zone where we will be taking you next.
Plaza Nueva is just one block over from the main pedestrian street of town which leads right into the shopping district -- Calle Sierpes, lined with the best shopping and liveliest atmosphere, especially in the late afternoon when the locals are out enjoying their traditional stroll.
Sierpes means “Street of the Serpent” perhaps due to its wiggly route and extreme length. It goes for nearly a mile and it's not just the one street it's an entire shopping zone, a fabric of side lanes and parallel streets that make for the most important shopping area of the city. There are a lot of beautiful old buildings here with tiles on the walls in that typical Andalusion style, so you want to be sure to look up a couple of floors to see the roof lines and the tiles up above and windows and balconies, maybe some flowerpots as you're walking along on these main shopping streets.
/