53409SEV
Seville walking sightseeing with local guide.
Seville sightseeing includes:
The Cathedral (including Giralda) – inside visit
Santa Cruz area
· Call or text local guide at least 24h in advance to confirm time and meeting point.
· Take your driver’s phone number as the centre of Seville is now mostly pedestrian and you will need to liaise with your driver for your pick-up location / time.
· Most itineraries now do not include a visit to the Alcazar – if your group wish to visit it they will need to book plenty of time in advance (blame Game of Thrones…)
· The Araque envelope contains the printed cathedral entrance tickets – please remember to take them with you for the local guide.
· Passports are needed for entrance to the cathedral – please inform group leaders in advance. Take the rooming list as well to speed things up.
· Warn the group most of Seville sightseeing is done on foot.
· Guide pays entrances. You pay guide with voucher – check correct numbers and sign.
· Remind your group the night before that they must dress suitably for entrance to the cathedral e.g. no shoestring straps or skimpy shorts.
· If the Cathedral is closed, the basilica of La Macarena and its museum make a good substitute.
· There are plenty of places for lunch in barrio Santa Cruz and around the Cathedral. The main shopping area is around the main pedestrian shopping streets C/ Sierpes and C/ Tetuán.
Arcos de la Frontera:
· Always check with your driver. Few tours include a stop in Arcos de la Frontera on the way from Seville, but it could be included so check in advance.
· The drive from Seville takes just under 1 ½ hours, depending on traffic, and then approximately another 2 ½ hours to the Costa del Sol.
· Arcos de la Frontera is a stunning and fairly small ‘pueblo blanco’, with a position on a hill that gives it breathtaking views. It is divided between the new town and old town, with the old town of most interest to visitors.
· There is a car / coach park off Calle Muñoz Vázquez, from which you follow the Cuesta Belen up the hill to the old town. There are WC facilities in the car park.
· The tourist office is on the Plaza Cabildo, 956 702 264. There is also an information kiosk on the Paseo de Andalucía in the newer part of town.
· Due to the relatively small size of Arcos de la Frontera’s old town, it is a good place to allow the group to walk around. But be careful as the roads are very narrow, amazingly not pedestrianised, and it is fairly easy to get lost.
· In the heart of the old town is the cobbled Plaza de Cabildo, with a car park for smaller vehicles. On the southern side of the square there are amazing views, where the mirador ends in a steep 150m-high cliff.
· Tapas bars in the old town are concentrated on or near the central Callejón de las Monjas, but souvenir shopping is slightly limited. The small roads and alleyways are great for pointing out the typical Andalucian architectural style, with whitewashed buildings, narrow streets and iron rejas on the windows.
The churches of San Pedro and Santa Maria – along with the Basilica of Santa Maria are worth visiting, if not just admiring from the outside. They also make good meeting-points. An idea would be to start or end a commentary on these, placing them in the historical context of Southern Spanish history. Arcos de la Frontera was an important Moorish settlement and has been settled by many different groups, as shown by the discovery of numerous archaeological remains from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Tartessian, Phoenician and Roman periods. You could encourage the group to think about how plentiful water and a powerful defensive hilltop location would have been the main attractions for settlers.
