Castles · Tour

Alcázar, Cathedral and Giralda for Nine, with the Ramp Climb

Both of Seville's UNESCO monuments in three hours, with an official local guide and never more than nine people in the group. Nine is the whole argument. A shared tour costs less than a private one and usually pays for it in size: thirty people strung out across a cathedral nave, half of them out of earshot. At nine, the tour keeps the attention of a private booking and the price of a shared one. The Cathedral comes first, the largest Gothic church in the world, standing on the ground of the city's Great Mosque. Inside are one of the best collections of religious art in Spain, the main altarpiece, the choir and the tomb of Columbus. The Giralda is climbed, and the climb is unusual: ramps instead of stairs, wide enough to ride up, because it was a minaret for centuries before it carried bells. It has been standing over Seville for more than eight hundred years. The Alcázar closes the tour. It is the oldest royal palace in Europe still in use, and the route takes in the Mudéjar Palace, the Patio de las Doncellas, the Hall of the Ambassadors and the gardens, with the Muslim rulers and Christian monarchs who each rebuilt part of it. The tour starts in the Plaza del Triunfo, which holds three World Heritage sites of its own.