One of the most romantic and historic of Spain’s great cities, Seville offers sight of just about every image characteristic of Andalusia, from flowering courtyards and gypsy guitarists to flamenco skirts and fabled bullfighters. The tireless muse of poets, novelists, painters, and playwrights, Seville has been either the start or the setting of quite a number of famous works, including Bizet’s “Carmen,” Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville,” and the many-times-retold tale of Don Juan, who begins his adventure in his hometown of Sevilla. Byron and Hemingway also pursued the city’s allure, and penned the passion that Seville inspired in them.

While the city itself is much older than Andalusia, it has been prized for its strategic location by all those who occupied it. The Romans called it Hispalis, and a variation of the name was then used by the Moors, who referred to the city as Isbiliyyah. And although in later times the Christians took hold of it and Columbus sailed from nearby, it is still the architecture of the Moors which is most evident in the older parts of the city. Even so, the Gothic cathedral, built on the site of the Giralda mosque and incorporating the Moorish minaret, is among the largest of its kind in Europe.