Where to Stay in Seville

The old riverside quarter west of the cathedral, running from the Torre del Oro up to the bullring and the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza. This was the port district when Seville held the monopoly on trade with the Americas, and it is now the most useful address in the city: the cathedral and the Alcazar are a three to seven minute walk, the river is at the end of the street, and the streets themselves are wide enough to find your way around. Its great advantage over Santa Cruz is what happens at night, when the day visitors drain east and the Arenal returns to being a neighbourhood with good tapas bars along Calle Garcia de Vinuesa and Calle Arfe.

Good to know: It is not cheap, and the stretch immediately around the bullring gets busy on fight days and during the Feria. The riverside itself is pleasant but the road along it carries traffic, so a room facing the Paseo de Cristobal Colon is louder than one a street back.

The old Jewish quarter immediately east of the cathedral, a lattice of whitewashed lanes, orange trees and hidden plazas that is genuinely as beautiful as the photographs. Everything is close: the cathedral, the Alcazar and the Archivo de Indias are all inside its western edge, and the hotels here are mostly converted casas palacio built around patios. If you have three days and want to walk out of your door into the sights, this is the obvious answer and it is a good one.

Good to know: Two honest drawbacks. The lanes are deliberately disorienting, laid out to confuse and to keep the sun out, and finding your hotel with luggage on arrival day is a real task; note the nearest plaza rather than the street name. And it is the most touristed ground in Seville, so the restaurants on the through-routes are priced for people who will not come back, while the bars two streets north in Alfalfa are better and cheaper.

The quarter immediately north of Santa Cruz, centred on Plaza de la Alfalfa. It is the same medieval street pattern without the tour groups, and it is where Sevillanos actually go out: a dense run of tapas bars around Calle Perez Galdos and Calle Boteros that fills late and stays cheerful. You are five to seven minutes from the cathedral, so you give up nothing on access, and you gain a neighbourhood that is still doing its own thing.

Good to know: It is loud. The bars around the plaza run until well past midnight at weekends, and the buildings are old with single glazing, so a front room facing a busy calle is a poor bet if you sleep early. Ask for interior or patio-facing.

The barrio on the west bank, historically the quarter of sailors, potters and flamenco families, and still the part of Seville with the strongest sense of itself. The Puente de Isabel II drops you onto Calle San Jacinto, the market at Plaza del Altozano sits at the bridgehead, and the ceramics workshops that gave Triana its name still trade. Crossing the bridge at night with the cathedral lit behind you is the best free thing in the city, and prices fall noticeably the moment you are over the water.

Good to know: The river is a real boundary in practice as well as on the map: everything on the sightseeing list is a ten to twenty-minute walk away, over a bridge, in whatever the weather is doing. That is a pleasure in April and a decision in August. Calle Betis along the water is the loudest strip in Triana at weekends.

A long tree-lined promenade north of the shopping streets, anchored by two Roman columns, that functions as the city's alternative living room. This is where the independent bars, the vermouth terraces and the late crowd are, and it is markedly younger and less polished than the old town. Rates are lower and the restaurants are aimed at residents, which shows on the bill.

Good to know: It is a genuine twenty-minute walk to the cathedral, which is the longest on this list, and the streets between here and the centre are ordinary commercial ones rather than scenic. The Alameda itself is busy and audible until very late at weekends, so pick a side street.

The eastern half of the old town, quieter and less walked than Santa Cruz but built from the same fabric: narrow streets, palacios, churches, and some of the best-converted hotels in the city, including several of the grandest casa palacio conversions. You are eight to fourteen minutes from the cathedral, which in a city this flat is nothing, and you get the old town at a volume you can actually sleep in.

Good to know: The trade is convenience. You are on the far side of the old town from the cathedral, the Alcazar and the river, so every day starts with a walk rather than a step outside. There is also less to eat immediately around you than in Alfalfa.

The two twentieth-century districts, Nervion east of the old town and Los Remedios across the river beyond Triana. Neither is a tourist quarter and neither pretends to be: they are ordinary Spanish city neighbourhoods with wide streets, apartment blocks, chain shopping and the practical things the old town lacks, above all hotels with real ground-level swimming pools and somewhere to park a car.

Good to know: You are outside the walkable core, so plan on twenty-five minutes on foot or a short taxi to the cathedral, and there is no atmosphere to compensate on the walk. Los Remedios is also the Feria ground, so during the Feria de Abril it goes from the quietest option here to the busiest.