Seville, top travel city in Andalusia
The travel giant Lonely Planet announced in 2018 the quintessentially Andalusian city of Seville as its top travel city. Home of the flamenco, bullfighting, tapas, and over 500 hundred years of Muslim history. So here are our top five Muslim heritage sites you simply have to visit in the stunning Spanish city once known as “Ishbiliya”.
1. THE GIRALDA
This 90-meter-high decorated bell tower was once the minaret of the city’s mosque. It was constructed between 1184 and 1198, at the height of Almohad rule. The delicate geometric patterns, now common throughout the Muslim world, sit on brickwork that changes color with the light. Said to be Spain’s most perfect Islamic building, the Giralda is the official symbol of the city of Seville. A climb to the top takes you into the 16th-century Christian additions, made after the minaret was converted into a bell tower and the mosque into a cathedral. This is also the best place in town for spectacular views across Seville.
2. THE ROYAL ALCAZAR
This is Seville’s Alhambra. Smaller but equally beautiful, the Alcazar is often overlooked by seekers of Andalusian Muslim heritage. This is because what you see today has been mainly built by Christian kings on the site of the original 10th-century Muslim fort. However, their architects were Muslims, and nowhere is this more apparent than the “jewel” in The Alcazar’s crown, the Mudejar Palacio de Don Pedro. This sumptuous courtyard built by King Pedro I is a direct replica of the one in Granada’s Alhambra, complete with water feature and arabesque arches. Even inside the Alcazar, Christian kings praised their Lord in the then-fashionable Arabic language, using inscriptions such as “Wa la ghalib ill Allah”: “There is no victor but God.”
3. TORRE DEL ORO
The Golden Tower, Seville Guadalquivir River
This 13th-century “Tower of Gold” is also an Almohad construction. It sits overlooking the River Guadalquivir (from the Arabic “Wadi al Kabir”, or “the Great River”) at what was once a corner of the ancient city. The tower gets its name from the belief that its dome used to be covered in golden tiles. Today, it is home to a maritime museum.
4. PATIO DE LOS NARANJOS
The Orange courtyard was the old sahn of the Great Mosque of Seville during the al-Andalus ages
Once part of the Great Mosque of Ishbiliya, this courtyard and the Giralda are all that remain of the old Islamic building. The site was the old sahn during the al-Andalus ages.
It contains 66 Naranjos (orange trees, which are said to have been introduced to Andalusia by the Muslims) and has many of the arabesque arches along the original garden walls that flank the Puerta del Perdon, the stunning Muslim-era gate. With a trickling fountain in the middle, the Patio de Los Naranjos is the perfect oasis to sit and contemplate Seville’s five centuries of Muslim civilization.
5. BANOS ARABES
Arab Baths “Hammam Experience” in Seville
A modern homage to the ancient culture of Ishbiliya, the Aire de Sevilla offers a classical Moorish hammam experience in a setting that evokes Muslim Iberia. The baths are housed in a Riyadh-like set of rooms overlooking an open courtyard, where visitors are whisked back to the age of the Morisco (Muslim Spaniard). The central water fountain is surrounded by eastern lanterns, Moorish tiles and furniture where customers sit sipping warm mint tea. The Aire de Sevilla offers a host of treatments inside rooms lit by soft candlelight, including a cold pool, two warm ones, and a steam room.