Sevilla On Line, Welcome!
     
Welcome to Sevilla On Line ES! :-)
Here you find information on the most important sites to visit during your stay in Seville. Additional to the famous, but very traditional, world heritage monuments, Semana Santa and the April Fair, which are undoubtly the main attraction of the city, we also would like you to have a more general impression of the city.
Specifically something as plain and simple as just the atmosphere of Seville is a characteristic that is very much appreciated by all visitors. As one of the hottest cities of Europe Seville offers excellent opportunities to largely and intensely live and enjoy being outdoors, with the countless number of terraces in many magnificent, pitoresque settings thanks to the historic architecture of the city, as in fact do so most visitors and inhabitants.
However, the local and tourism authorities don't seem to be as much aware of it as they could/should be.
As a critical note to these authorities it can be pointed out that they seem to just kling on to the eternal group of the mentioned historical/traditional attractions (plus flamenco and bull-fighting). Hardly any attention is payed to the fact that for many people, just being outside and enjoying the atmosphere of Seville is already an experience by itself, that could be well improved for both visitor as the people of Seville itself.
For example, over the past decades, the authorities could have recovered, optimized and given (new) live to the whole of both river banks (streching some 6 km from Puente de las Delicias in the south to Puente del Alamillo in the north), fully integrating it into the city and alternating small-scale commerce, leisure, culture, urban parks and maybe even a small beach of some sort. The whole of the former Expo '92 site (Isla de la Cartuja) could have been turned into a lively and dynamic continuation, and at the same time modern counterpart, of Seville's historic center where business could have mixed splendidly with leisure, students and tourists.
However, all of this has been left abbandoned by the respective city councils who allowed it to degrade into sad rusty, dirty, atlhough modern and luxurous, ruins over the years...
while engaging in pompous real-estate proyects like the controversial tram, metro, Mushrooms (Setas) and, last but not least, the Torre Pelli (or Torre Cajasol), almost causing Seville to loose it's UNESCO World Heritage Status.
Sevilla On Line - mission
In current times, we feel that any institutional and commercial initiative unavoidably carries social responsibilities as well.
However, recent history clearly shows, that considerably more than the big global multinational corporations, it is the small(er) companies and individual entrepreneurs who really and genuinly are aware and care about issues like environment, sustainablity and social impact of their commercial activities.
In 2012 Sevilla On Line has started to actively search and include references to actions, claims or protests in favor of society and environment, rather than the (still) dominating obsession for maximum profit regardless of the consecuences and lacking respect for both nature or society.
We are quite convinced that you too will prefer and enjoy knowing that you can still find pure nature and unspoiled beaches:
instead of agglomerations of cement and concrete:
As such, Sevilla On Line ES prefers to concentrate on the natural beauty, rather than on artificial and profit focussed entertainment like adventure parks, super holiday resorts, mega discoteques or the water and environment-unfriendly golfcourses that suddenly boomed over the last decades in search of the so called "luxury" tourism.
Unfortunately, in dictatorial times and with the booming of mass-tourism (specifically the 60ies and early 70ies) , Spain has squandered a great deal of it's natural beauty degrading it to huge tourism-gettos that, except for being apparently more "modern" and "luxurous", have a certain resemblance to the Favelas in Brasil, that, ironically, are too set in beautiful natural environments.
Even if dictatorial times have long past, there are still reduced but powerful forces that insist in trying to maintain the archaic habbit of selling parts of the country to the highest bidder as if Spain were some kind of Banana Republic, although in this case, a Banana Monarchy, with local governments willing to exploit unspoiled beaches, or even adapt laws to allow for something called "EuroVegas".
Plataforma Euro Vegas NO!
petition at: http://blog.salvarelpalmar.es/
twitter: @salvarelpalmar
View over Valdevaqueros beach, Bolonia - Costa de la Luz
foto tomado prestado: ©Gaspar Serrano
Spain has waisted and lost a tremendous amount of both nature as money in a great number of senseless, unrealistic, failed and hardly legal faraonic real estate projects like the unused airports of Castellón and Ciudad Real, Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences or the City of Culture in Galicia, that only have come to live due to the desatrous combination of greed, arrogance and corruption of local, regional and national politicians, together with constructors and the financial sector.
Sevilla On Line, in addition to supporting social and environmental awareness, the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and Doctors Withouth Borders, takes the next logical the step in this sequence in favor of a better and to Ethical Banking through it's account at Triodos Bank.
"At Triodos Bank, we believe that profit doesn't need to be at the expense of the world's most pressing environmental problems. That's why we finance organisations from organic food and farming businesses and pioneering renewable energy enterprises, to recycling companies and nature conservation projects."
Final note:
Sevilla On Line ES originally intended to focus on exposing and promoting only the beauty and attractiveness of Seville, Andalusia and Spain.
But the insistent absolute and profound lack of any sense of social or environmental responibility shown by most of the institutional spanish authorities (authoritarian indeed) over the last decades, in combination with their unacceptable and indignant corruptive, and at the same time arrogant behaviour, just does not allow for acting as if everything is "fine" anymore. This would be as short-sighted and hypocrite as denying the existence of the maffia in Italy or the power of the drug-cartels in Mexico.
We find it truly sad to have observed for many years how, under the false appearance of artificial economic growth, the continuous and senseless, large-scale squandering of resources, by either incompetent or corrupt authorities, have accumulated in nothing else than just more destruction of environment and waisting of opportunities for spanish society as a whole. We feel this just cannot be left unmentioned.
* just gathering some links (in Spanish)
|
(best viewed with Firefox or Chrome or see big map)
 monuments,  hotels and  apartments in Seville
(Latitude, Longitude) zoom of the map:
World Heritage in Seville
- the Cathedral of Seville & the Giralda Tower
- the Alcazar palace
- the Archive
of the Indies
This group of monuments was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1987
Giralda tower
The Seville Cathedral
Alcázar palace - Los Reales Alcázares
The archives of the indies
Very popular as well is Plaza de España (the spanish square) in the María Luisa Park. In this area you can find many interesting buildings, reminders of the Latin American Exhibition which took place in Seville in 1929.
Plaza de España has even been a scenery for STAR WARS.
You can also take a look at the Royal Tobacco Factory where the famous story of Carmen (by Bizet) took place. Now it is the main building of the university of Seville.
Situated on the banks of the Guadalquivir River, the Torre del Oro (the Gold Tower) is a building of arabic origin (13th century) which once formed part of the city walls. Due to it's close links with spanish maritime history, it was chosen as the site of the Naval Museum.
This tower marks the entrance to the Arenal district; the bullfight sector of Seville. Here you can find one of the most emblematic bullrings of Spain, the Real Maestranza de Caballería bullring of Seville .
Semana santa - Holy week (easter)
2013: March 24 - 31
Feria de Sevilla
- Seville April fair
2013: April 15 - 21
Terraces, (tapa)bars and restaurants
If there is something not too little of in Seville, it's definitely (tapa)bars, terraces and restaurants. In the historic center there is probably no radius of a 100 meters that does not contain a public drinking or eating establishment. In some areas the concentration is so high you can see, in one glance, over a dozen, like on the Alameda de Hércules, in the Santa Cruz, Triana or Alfalfa districts.
El Rinconcillo, the oldest bar of Seville (1670)
Popular districts of Seville, Spain
 In the center of Seville, Spain can be found more well-known streets such as Sierpes or Campana, as well as numerous churches, hospitals and renaissance and baroque palaces. Moreover in the Macarena district you can find the Alameda de Hércules, the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas (site of the Parliament of Andalucia), the Arch and Basilica of the Macarena and the San Lorenzo Church. The latter house two statues revered by the people of Seville: la Virgen de la Esperanza and Jésus del Gran Poder, celebrated during the processions in Semana Santa.
 Another of the more traditional districts of Seville is that of Triana, on the other side of the river. Its profound maritime tradition can be seen in the streets Pureza, Betis or Alfarería and in Plaza del Altozano.
 The Isla de la Cartuja is situated on this bank of the river, where bulidings remaining from the The 1992 Univeral Exhibition add to the existing historical monuments of the Cartuja and the Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art.
Other useful information
Beyond the city of Seville, Spain
In the province of Seville there are several nice historic towns that are well worth a visit. Most recomendable and closest to Seville is Carmona, at only 32 km. on the route to Cordoba. Other typical towns are Écija (halfway to Cordoba as well), Marchena or Utrera.
To the north of Seville you find the only nature park of the province, conveniently called: Sierra norte de Sevilla
nature park. It is the continuation of La Sierra de Aracena y picos de Aroche nature park, that lies to the west in the province of Huelva. To the east it continues in the province of Córdoba as la Sierra de Hornachuelos first and next la Sierra de Cardeña y Montoro.
Coastline and beaches of Andalusia
Monuments in Andalusia
Nature parks and reserves in Andalusia
Airports in Andalusia
|
Spain On Map
