Seville

Seville may be Spain's most intense city — a metropolis of 700,000 people that combines the most spectacular monuments in Andalusia with the most living cultural traditions on the Iberian peninsula, and a Mediterranean ease that even July's 40 °C cannot extinguish.

Three UNESCO monuments anchor the historical experience. The cathedral, built on the site of the great Almohad mosque, is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world by area; its tower, the Giralda (a former minaret converted into a bell tower), is the city's defining symbol. The Alcázar, a Mudéjar royal palace whose gardens cascade in fragrant terraces, is one of the most beautiful royal residences in Europe — and still an official residence of the Spanish royal family. The Plaza de España (1929), whose semicircular colonnade borders a 500-metre canal, is one of Europe's most grandiose public spaces.

But Seville is also Triana — the neighbourhood across the Guadalquivir that is the cradle of Sevillian flamenco, azulejo ceramics and the city's best fried fish tapas. It is Holy Week, with its candlelit nocturnal processions, hooded brotherhoods and sculptured floats (pasos) of austere magnificence, constituting the most emotionally powerful event in the Spanish Catholic calendar. And it is the April Fair, two weeks after Easter, where Sevillanas in polka-dot dresses dance the sevillana in multicoloured marquees until dawn — an experience without equivalent in Europe.