Seville has more inhabited palaces than any Spanish city, and many remain with the same noble families that built them. This route opens doors mass tourism ignores: Casa de Pilatos and its 1521 Via Crucis, the Roman mosaics the Countess of Lebrija bought by the metre, the Alba garden where Machado was born and the Mudéjar tower of the Algaba. Nobility, art and tiles in a three-hour walk.
The route
Apartamento Esencia Sevilla
Route starting point. Leave the apartment towards the first stop.
Casa de Pilatos
Mudéjar-Renaissance palace started by the Marquis of Tarifa after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Tip: In 1521 the Marquis fixed a jasper cross on the wall and marked the 14 Stations of the Cross from there: the last one "happened" to land by the Caños de Carmona. That Via Crucis is still celebrated today.
Palacio de la Condesa de Lebrija
The "best-paved house in Europe": its floors are Roman mosaics brought from Itálica.
Tip: The Countess bought mosaics from Santiponce farmers by the square metre. The courtyard is literally paved with Roman history.
Palacio de las Dueñas
Home of the Alba family: orange-tree gardens, a Gothic-Mudéjar courtyard and the room where Antonio Machado was born.
Tip: Machado wrote about "the garden holding the evening light": this is it. See the stables with Cayetana de Alba's horse carriage.
Palacio de la Algaba
14th-century Mudéjar tower among orange trees: today the interpretation centre of medieval Seville.
Tip: Free and little-known: the tower offers one of the few views over the rooftops of the northern old town.
Hospital de los Venerables
Baroque priests' residence with Valdés Leal's fresco on the church ceiling.
Tip: Look at the sacristy ceiling: Valdés Leal's "Triumph of the Cross", said to be painted in a single day.
