Where should I stay in Seville?

Santa Cruz is the right answer for a first trip. The barrio sits between the Seville Cathedral (started 1402, the largest Gothic cathedral on earth) and the Reales Alcázares, and most of what you'll want to see on days 1 and 2 is a 10-minute walk or less. The streets are tight enough that buildings throw shade across the full width by mid-morning. That matters. Seville currently sits at 35.9°C in mid-June, and the difference between a sunlit boulevard and a Santa Cruz alley can be 8-10 degrees. You'll smell orange blossoms and wet stone from shopkeepers hosing down their stoops before opening. A decent double room in Santa Cruz runs €80-140 ($92-160) at a small hotel like Hotel Casa 1800 or Hotel Amadeus. Expect to hear flamenco guitar from a nearby tablao most evenings, and church bells from the Giralda at 8am.

Arenal fills the strip between Santa Cruz and the Guadalquivir, anchored by the Torre del Oro (built 1221) at one end and the Plaza de toros de la Maestranza (1881) at the other. It tends to run €10-15 cheaper per night than Santa Cruz for comparable rooms, and you're still a 12-minute walk to the Cathedral. The trade-off is more traffic noise along Paseo de Colón and fewer of those narrow shaded lanes. Arenal works if you want a riverside evening walk and proximity to the Triana bridge without the Santa Cruz premium. You'll find tapas spots along Calle García de Vinuesa that draw more locals than the streets behind the Cathedral.

Triana sits across the Puente de Isabel II from the old city, and it feels like a separate town. The ceramic workshops along Calle Alfarería still fire their kilns. The Mercado de Triana, built over the ruins of the Castillo de San Jorge (the old Inquisition headquarters), sells fat prawns from Sanlúcar and jamón ibérico sliced to order. A one-bedroom apartment in Triana runs €55-90 ($63-103) per night. The walk back across the bridge to Santa Cruz takes 15 minutes. Mind you, Triana has fewer hotels and more rental apartments, so you're likely booking online rather than walking into a reception desk. For a second or third visit, when you already know where the Cathedral is, Triana is the better neighborhood.

Centro around Plaza de la Encarnación (below the Metropol Parasol) and the Alameda de Hércules corridor are noisier options that some guides push. The Alameda has Seville's densest bar scene, which means stumbling crowds and broken glass on the cobblestones at 4am on weekends. Fine for a night out. Less fine for sleeping. Polígono Sur, about 3km south of the centre, appears on no tourist maps for good reason. For summer visits from June through September, ground-floor rooms in Santa Cruz stay noticeably cooler than upper floors, and you'll want air conditioning that reviewers confirm works, not listings that claim it. The tile floors of older buildings feel cool underfoot even at 40°C. Book 4-6 weeks ahead for Semana Santa (March or April) and Feria de Abril (two weeks later), when rates climb 40-60% and Santa Cruz sells out entirely.