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The Best Hotels in Seville, and Who Each One Is Wrong For

Almost every good hotel in Seville is a converted Sevillian house, so the real choice is which layout you get: the patio you eat breakfast in, and the roof you retreat to at four in the afternoon. Every walk below was routed to the cathedral, not estimated.

Best all-round: EME Catedral Mercer

See availability in SevilleLive prices for your dates
By Emma12 min readPublished Prices checked August 2026
Table of contents
A columned courtyard with a fountain in a Sevillian palace house, the layout most Seville hotels convert
Photo: Kiko León · CC BY-SA 4.0

In Brief

Which is the best hotel in Seville?

EME Catedral Mercer, if the view is the point: it faces the cathedral and its roof terrace looks straight at the Giralda, two minutes from the door. Hotel Simon is the best value in the old town by a distance. Ignore both if you want a real swimming pool, because Seville's rooftops are mostly plunge pools.

Key takeaways

  • Closest to the cathedral: EME Catedral Mercer, a measured 2 minutes
  • Best value: Hotel Simon, an 18th-century courtyard house 3 minutes from the cathedral
  • The roof is not a luxury add-on here. It is part of the building type.

Which one fits how you travel

Find the row that sounds like your trip. Every pick below names the traveller it is wrong for, so you can book on fit rather than on rank.

If you areBookWhy
Here for the view above allEME Catedral Mercer123 metres from the cathedral, roof facing the Giralda.
Watching the budget but wanting the real thingHotel SimonAn 18th-century patio house three minutes from the cathedral.
Travelling outside high summerHotel Casa 1800 SevillaThe one old-town rooftop pool open every day of the year.
On a honeymoon or a quiet weekCorral del ReySeventeen keys, and three penthouses with private plunge pools.
Travelling soloLa Banda Rooftop HostelThe nightly rooftop dinner solves eating alone in a late-dining city.
Wanting a real swimming pool, not a dipHotel Alfonso XIIIA garden pool rather than a rooftop plunge.
Curious what a Sevillian house actually isLas Casas de la JuderiaTwenty-seven houses and forty patios knitted into one hotel.
See availability for your dates in SevilleCompare every hotel below on one map · hostels and small guesthouses, still inside the old town
  • Free cancellation on most rooms
  • No booking fee
  • Prices on Trip.com
Flights to SevilleCompare airlines and dates

What the bands mean

Rates are shown as bands, not numbers. Seville's hotels swing harder by date than almost any city in Spain, because Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril fall in consecutive weeks and treble the going rate, and August empties the city in the other direction. A printed nightly figure would be wrong within days. The bands describe where each hotel sits against the others, and the live rate for your dates opens through the button on each card.

€
hostels and small guesthouses, still inside the old town
€€
mid-range, where most of the palacio conversions sit
€€€
upper tier, usually for the patio or the roof
€€€€
the city's landmark addresses

The 9 hotels, and who each one is wrong for

Walking times are to Seville Cathedral. Walking times are real pedestrian routes to Seville Cathedral, measured through OpenStreetMap foot routing at 4.5 km/h. The cathedral is the anchor because it is the one point every visit passes through and because the old town is small enough that the whole list fits inside a twenty-minute walk of it. Seville is flat, so unlike a hillside city there is no climb to report and the distance is the whole story. One caveat the numbers cannot carry: from June to September the average daily maximum is above 33 degrees and reaches 36.4 in July and August on the 1991 to 2020 normals, so a ten-minute walk at two in the afternoon is a different proposition from the same walk at ten at night, which is when Seville actually goes out.

  • Seville cathedral and the Giralda seen from the square outside

    Santa Cruz, facing the cathedral

    EME Catedral Mercer

    €€€€
    Rated 4.2 out of 5 on Google Maps from 2,646 reviews, as of November 2026
    Best all-round

    A 16th-century Andalusian building on Calle Alemanes, directly opposite the cathedral, with a rooftop pool looking at the Giralda.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    2 minutes, 123 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    A first visit where the view is worth paying for. Nothing else on this list is 123 metres from the cathedral, and the rooftop faces the Giralda squarely rather than obliquely.
    Wrong for
    Anyone who wants quiet. You are on the cathedral's doorstep, and the rooftop bar is one of the best-known public terraces in the city, which is a lot of people arriving at your hotel who are not staying in it.
    The catch
    The rooftop pool is guests-only and the hotel says so plainly, but the bar is not, so the terrace you booked for is shared with the city most evenings. The pool itself is a dipping pool, not a swimming one.
    Check dates and prices for EME Catedral MercerOpens the live rate for your dates
  • The Giralda bell tower in Seville seen over orange trees

    Between Santa Cruz and Alfalfa

    Hotel Palacio Pinello

    €€€
    Rated 4.5 out of 5 on Google Maps from 471 reviews, as of November 2026

    A 15th-century palace on Calle Segovias with a courtyard well and a rooftop terrace almost under the Giralda.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    3 minutes, 250 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Anyone who wants the palacio experience without the landmark price. The hotel's own site dates the building to the 15th century, which makes it the oldest fabric on this list, and the roof terrace has the closest Giralda view of the mid-range options.
    Wrong for
    Anyone expecting resort facilities. There is a terrace and a courtyard and that is the offer.
    The catch
    Several published round-ups call this adults-only. The hotel's own site says it welcomes guests of all ages, so if you were counting on a child-free stay, that is not what you are booking.
    Check dates and prices for Hotel Palacio PinelloOpens the live rate for your dates
  • A street in the El Arenal quarter of Seville

    El Arenal, by the cathedral

    Hotel Simon

    €
    Rated 4.3 out of 5 on Google Maps from 841 reviews, as of November 2026
    Best value

    An 18th-century Andalusian house on Calle Garcia de Vinuesa with a fountain courtyard, 50 metres from the cathedral on the Arenal side.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    3 minutes, 260 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Travellers who want the classic Seville courtyard and do not want to pay palacio rates for it. This is the cheapest way on this list to sleep inside a real 18th-century patio house in the old town, with rooms advertised from 53 euro on the hotel's own site.
    Wrong for
    Anyone who needs a roof terrace or a pool, because it has neither. The courtyard is the outdoor space and in August that is a meaningful difference.
    The catch
    It is an old building run as an old building: rooms vary a great deal, and the ones off the courtyard hear the courtyard. Book it for the patio and the price, not for consistency.
    Check dates and prices for Hotel SimonOpens the live rate for your dates
  • A whitewashed lane hung with flowers in Barrio Santa Cruz, Seville

    Santa Cruz, on Calle Rodrigo Caro

    Hotel Casa 1800 Sevilla

    €€€
    Rated 4.6 out of 5 on Google Maps from 967 reviews, as of November 2026

    A restored 19th-century house built around a light well, with the only rooftop pool in the old town open every day of the year.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    5 minutes, 370 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Anyone visiting outside high summer who still wants the roof. The hotel states its rooftop pool is open 365 days a year from 10am to 8pm, which almost nothing else in Seville can say, and it measures itself at 130 metres from the cathedral.
    Wrong for
    Anyone who wants the roof to themselves in July. It sells day passes to non-residents in summer, so the busiest months are also the ones when the terrace is shared.
    The catch
    The pool is small and the hotel publishes no dimensions. Treat it as a place to cool off between sights rather than somewhere to swim lengths.
    Check dates and prices for Hotel Casa 1800 SevillaOpens the live rate for your dates
  • The Torre del Oro on the riverside in El Arenal, Seville

    El Arenal, on Calle Dos de Mayo

    La Banda Rooftop Hostel

    €
    Rated 4.7 out of 5 on Google Maps from 800 reviews, as of October 2026

    A seven-dorm hostel whose rooftop runs a nightly communal dinner and live music with the cathedral in view.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    6 minutes, 478 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Solo travellers, who get the hardest problem in Seville solved for them: the city eats late and in groups, and the nightly rooftop dinner here means you are not doing that alone.
    Wrong for
    Light sleepers and anyone travelling as a couple who wants privacy. It is a social hostel and the roof is a venue.
    The catch
    Some areas have no lift, which matters with heavy luggage, and the rooftop programme that makes it worth booking runs directly above the dorms.
    Check dates and prices for La Banda Rooftop HostelOpens the live rate for your dates
  • Terrace tables on a square in the Alfalfa quarter of Seville

    Alfalfa

    Corral del Rey

    €€€€
    Rated 4.6 out of 5 on Google Maps from 170 reviews, as of November 2026

    A 17th-century casa palacio across three buildings with only 17 keys, and penthouse suites that each have a private plunge pool.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    7 minutes, 536 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Couples who want the smallest, quietest luxury house on this list. Seventeen keys in a restored palacio with original stone porticos is a different experience from a 134-room conversion, and the three penthouses have their own terrace and plunge pool.
    Wrong for
    Families and anyone who wants facilities. There is a roof terrace with a small pool and a bar, and nothing resembling a resort.
    The catch
    The private plunge pools are the reason to book and they belong to three rooms only. Everyone else shares a small rooftop pool, so confirm which room you are getting before you pay for the picture you saw.
    Check dates and prices for Corral del ReyOpens the live rate for your dates
  • Calle Santa Maria la Blanca in the old Jewish quarter of Seville

    San Bartolome, the old Jewish quarter

    Las Casas de la Juderia

    €€€
    Rated 4.5 out of 5 on Google Maps from 2,453 reviews, as of October 2026

    Twenty-seven traditional houses linked by passages into one hotel, with more than forty patios and 134 rooms.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    10 minutes, 760 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Anyone who wants to understand what the courtyard house actually is. This is the point of the whole category made physical: twenty-seven separate houses knitted together, so you walk between patios and cellars to reach your room.
    Wrong for
    Anyone in a hurry or with limited mobility. Finding your room through a warren of linked houses is charming on night three and tiresome on night one with a suitcase.
    The catch
    At 134 rooms it is far larger than it feels, and the room you get varies enormously across twenty-seven buildings of different quality.
    Check dates and prices for Las Casas de la JuderiaOpens the live rate for your dates
  • The Hispalis fountain at Puerta de Jerez in Seville

    Puerta de Jerez, beside the Alcazar gardens

    Hotel Alfonso XIII

    €€€€
    Rated 4.6 out of 5 on Google Maps from 7,242 reviews, as of November 2026

    The city's landmark hotel, purpose-built between 1916 and 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition, with a garden pool rather than a rooftop.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    13 minutes, 960 m to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    A special trip where the building is the point. It is the one hotel here that was designed as a grand hotel rather than converted from a house, and it has a genuine garden swimming pool, not a rooftop dipping pool.
    Wrong for
    Anyone looking for intimacy or value. It is the most public, most photographed hotel in Seville and it is priced accordingly.
    The catch
    The pool is reported as seasonal, roughly April to October, and Marriott's own pages refuse automated requests so we could not confirm the dates from the operator. Ask before you book for the pool.
    Check dates and prices for Hotel Alfonso XIIIOpens the live rate for your dates
  • The church of Santa Catalina and its Mudejar tower in eastern Seville

    Santa Catalina, east of the cathedral

    CoolRooms Palacio Villapanes

    €€€€
    Rated 4.8 out of 5 on Google Maps from 1,210 reviews, as of November 2026

    A baroque palace built in 1729 for Admiral Lopez-Pintado, with 50 rooms, a rooftop plunge pool and a ground-floor spa.

    Walk to Seville Cathedral
    14 minutes, 1.1 km to the cathedral to Seville Cathedral
    Right for
    Travellers who want a genuinely grand palacio in a quieter quarter. Santa Catalina is the old town without the Santa Cruz tour groups, and the building is a listed 18th-century baroque work.
    Wrong for
    Anyone whose plan is to walk out of the door into the sights. At 14 minutes you are on the far side of the old town from the cathedral.
    The catch
    The hotel calls its rooftop water a plunge pool in its own words, and states it opens for the season rather than year-round. The spa downstairs is the more reliable amenity.
    Check dates and prices for CoolRooms Palacio VillapanesOpens the live rate for your dates

Where not to book in Seville

There is no unsafe part of central Seville to steer anyone away from, so the traps here are all about what you are actually buying. The first is the word pool. Seville's rooftop pools are overwhelmingly plunge pools: dipping tanks a metre deep, not places to swim, and several are seasonal even though the city is hot from May to October. If swimming matters, the honest options are a garden pool like the Alfonso XIII's or a hotel outside the old town, and our where-to-stay guide covers where those are. The second is the roof itself, which in Seville is often a public bar as well as a guest terrace, so check whether the hotel sells day passes before assuming the view is yours. The third is the calendar, and it is brutal: Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril fall within a fortnight of each other in spring, both fill the entire city, and rates treble while minimum-stay rules appear. The fourth is August, when the average daily maximum is 36.4 degrees and much of the city closes; a hotel without a courtyard or a roof to retreat to is a much worse hotel that month than it is in April.

When to book

Seville's year has two spikes and one collapse, and they are all worth planning around. Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril arrive within a fortnight of each other in spring and are the hardest weeks in Spain to book well: the good old-town rooms go six months or more ahead and rates treble, so if your dates are fixed to either, book as early as you are able. October and November are the connoisseur's months, warm and clear with the crowds gone and rates at their most reasonable, and six to eight weeks out is comfortable. August is the strange one: the heat empties the city and rates fall, so you can book late and do very well, provided you accept that sightseeing happens before eleven and after seven. Whatever the month, if a courtyard room or a specific rooftop is why you are choosing a hotel, book direct and say so, because in buildings this old the rooms are not interchangeable.

Best hotels in Seville: FAQ

The questions travellers ask most when picking a hotel here.

EME Catedral Mercer if the cathedral view is what you are paying for, since it sits a measured 123 metres from the cathedral with a rooftop facing the Giralda. Hotel Simon is the best value in the old town, an 18th-century courtyard house three minutes from the same spot at a fraction of the rate. Corral del Rey is the pick for a quiet luxury stay at seventeen keys. There is no single answer because Seville's hotels are mostly converted houses, so what you are really choosing is a building rather than a brand.

Seville is unusually well supplied, because the local building type suits it: the traditional Sevillian house is organised around a central patio, and the casa palacio format is exactly what small hotels here occupy. Corral del Rey is the smallest and most complete example at seventeen keys in a 17th-century palacio. Hotel Palacio Pinello is the mid-range version in a 15th-century palace. Casa del Poeta sits on a cul-de-sac deep inside Santa Cruz, and Hotel Sacristia de Santa Ana is the one on the Alameda de Hercules if you want bohemian Seville rather than the tourist quarter. Las Casas de la Juderia is the outlier: it feels boutique and has 134 rooms.

Many advertise one, and the word is doing a lot of work. The great majority are rooftop plunge pools, shallow dipping tanks rather than pools you can swim in, and a number of them are seasonal. The exceptions worth knowing are Hotel Casa 1800, whose rooftop pool is stated to be open 365 days a year, Hotel Amadeus, whose saltwater rooftop is heated in winter, and Hotel Alfonso XIII, which has a real garden swimming pool rather than a rooftop. If a proper swim matters more than the address, look outside the old town where the ground-level pools are.

Because the roof is native to the building type rather than a modern amenity. Studies of 17th-century Seville houses describe the azotea, the flat roof, as always present in both large and small houses, alongside the central courtyard that organises the whole plan. When these houses became hotels, the patio and the azotea came with them. There is a practical reason they are used so hard, too: the average daily maximum in Seville is above 33 degrees in June and 36.4 in July and August, so the shaded patio in the morning and the roof after sunset are how the building was always meant to handle the heat.

Inside the old town, and preferably west or south of the cathedral rather than deep in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is beautiful and it is also the most touristed warren in the city, so the lanes are busy all day and the restaurants along them are priced for people who will not return. El Arenal, immediately west, is quieter at night, three to seven minutes from the cathedral, and holds both the best-value entry here and one of the best luxury ones. Our where-to-stay guide rates every barrio in detail.

Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril, which fall within a fortnight of one another in spring and are the two weeks the whole city is booked for. Rates roughly treble, minimum stays appear, and the good rooms in the old town go six months or more ahead. The cheapest window with tolerable weather is late autumn, and August is cheaper still because the heat empties the city, with average daily maximums of 36.4 degrees.

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Photo credits (9)

Photos via Wikimedia Commons, used under their respective licences.

  • Seville cathedral and the Giralda seen from the square outside: Lancastermerrin88 - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
  • The Giralda bell tower in Seville seen over orange trees: Diego Delso - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
  • A street in the El Arenal quarter of Seville: Feranza - CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
  • A whitewashed lane hung with flowers in Barrio Santa Cruz, Seville: Heinz Joerg Kretschmer - CC BY 3.0 · source
  • The Torre del Oro on the riverside in El Arenal, Seville: Heinz Joerg Kretschmer - CC BY 3.0 · source
  • Terrace tables on a square in the Alfalfa quarter of Seville: erikccooper - CC BY 2.0 · source
  • Calle Santa Maria la Blanca in the old Jewish quarter of Seville: Pedro Szekely - CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
  • The Hispalis fountain at Puerta de Jerez in Seville: CarlosVdeHabsburgo - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
  • The church of Santa Catalina and its Mudejar tower in eastern Seville: Zarateman - CC0 · source