Travel & Adventures: Seville ( Sevilla ). A voyage to Seville, Andalucía, Spain ( España), Europe.

Some cities have looks, other cities have personality. The sevillanos – lucky devils – get both, courtesy of their flamboyant, charismatic, ever-evolving Andalucian metropolis founded, according to myth, 3000 years ago by the Greek god Hercules. Drenched for most of the year in spirit-enriching sunlight, this is a city of feelings as much as sights, with different seasons prompting vastly contrasting moods: solemn for Semana Santa, flirtatious for the spring fiesta and soporific for the gasping heat of summer.

Like all great cities, Seville has historical layers. Roman ruins testify the settlement’s earliest face, memories of the Moorish era flicker like medieval engravings in the Santa Cruz quarter, while the riverside Arenal reeks of lost colonial glory. Yet, one of the most remarkable things about modern Seville is its ability to adapt and etch fresh new brushstrokes onto an ancient canvas. If any one place comes close to rolling together everything that’s quintessentially Andalucian, it’s Seville.

Here in the region’s capital and biggest city, that special Andalucian way of life is distilled into its purest and most intense form.
Seville has the most passionate and portentous Semana Santa (Holy Week), the most festive and romantic annual feria (fair), the best tapas bars, the best nightlife and the most stylish people in Andalucía.

It has more narrow, winding, medieval lanes and romantic, hidden plazas soaked in the scent of orange blossom than half of Andalucía’s other cities put together. It’s the home of those two bulwarks of Andalucian tradition, flamenco and bullfighting, and its heri‑tage of art and architecture (Roman, Islamic, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque) is without rival in southern Spain.

But Seville’s most developed art form is that of enjoying oneself. To be out at night among the city’s relaxed, fun-loving crowds – in the tapas bars, on the streets, in the clubs and discos – is an experience you won’t forget. There are a couple of catches, of course: Seville is expensive. You might pay €80 here for a room that would cost €50 elsewhere, and prices go even higher during Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril (April Fair). Also bear in mind that Seville gets very hot in July and August: locals, sensibly, leave the city then.