Why Seville is Europes most glorious city in winter

Wandering across Plaza Virgen de los Reyes in the mid-afternoon, I briefly lose track of the season. The gradual fading of the day has given Seville’s giant cathedral a silhouette effect, its grand sandstone bulk increasingly back-lit as the sun seeks the horizon. The remainder of its rays, angling in low, appear to swirl around the square, dancing beneath the branches of the orange trees which, although the harvest is long passed, still sing of their lost fruit. Certainly, the citrus scent which hangs so heavy in the city seems to linger.

And it is warm. Not in that worrying way of climate change; of February heatwaves in cold countries. Just in the way of Andalusia being Andalusia. I remind myself, it’s winter.

Indeed, pay a visit to Spain’s great southern region at the end of the year and you might wonder whether its capital understands the concept. The gloomiest season can be only vaguely in evidence, Seville clinging to a fine and pleasant 20C in November, dropping to a still-gentle 16C between December and February – and regaining its glow in March.

True, this is hardly an unheard-of statement. In one sense, Seville is defined by its Moorish past – the Alcázar palace singing of the five-century period (712-1248) when southern Spain was the realm of North African sultans; the cathedral’s ornate Giralda bell-tower barely bothering to disguise the fact that it was once a minaret. In another sense, the city is shaped by its relationship with the sun. It has learnt to cope with the anger of a celestial tyrant whose ire can crest 40C in mid-summer. It cowers in corners, begs mercy of the shadows – and even in the “chillier” months, it hides from the heavens.

Inside the glorious AlcazarCredit: Stockbyte

In any other city, the idea of a vast installation blocking out the sky in a significant public space would surely cause howls of disgust. In Seville, it just seems an act of pragmatism. The clue is there in the name, because the official title of the modernist masterpiece that spans much of Plaza de la Encarnación – the creation of German architect Jürgen Mayer – is the “Metropol Parasol” (even if Sevillanos tend to call it “Las Setas”; “The Mushrooms”). It stretches out as a slatted-wood canopy, 70m wide, 150m long; a daring fragment of 2011 thrillingly out of kilter with the 16th-century Iglesia de la Anunciación, which watches, unamused, from the south-west flank of the square. In July and August, the city shelters underneath it – grateful for the respite it provides from the incessant heat.

Winter brings a less attritional picture. Evidence that this is an ideal season to drop anchor in Seville is there at the food-and-drink options under the fringes of the Parasol – locals queuing for bread and pastries at the Horno San Ginés bakery, or contemplating the lengthy cocktail list at the nearby style-bar Moss. In effect, all Sevillano life is here. Inside the squat structure which underpins Mayer’s artistry, the Mercado de la Encarnación deals in thick haunches of tuna on marble slabs, as well as the inevitable prisms of oranges; beneath it, the Antiquarium museum recalls the city which existed in Roman times, as “Hispalis”. I lose myself again, in the latter, admiring the laurel-leaf mosaics which remain in the floor of the fourth-century villa Casa de las Columnas. Back in the open, the view of the city from the Parasol’s elevated walkways shows it as a flat expanse of ruddy brick – as if the sun, over tireless centuries, has pounded it into the soil.

Las Setas, a modernist marvelCredit: Europa Press

It also shows it as a maze of squished contours, where one district runs distractedly into another. So it proves where the broader spaces of Centro ebb east and collide with the narrower alleys and scruffier confines of residential La Macarena. Here, suddenly, there is less room to breathe than on the south side of Seville (where the Parque de Maria Luisa acts as a 100-acre lung). But there is invention too. The Palacio de las Dueñas slots itself onto the narrow thoroughfare of Calle Dueñas, skulking behind its mighty gateway as a home of the Duke of Alba. Built in the 15th century, it provides an architectural masterclass in how to keep one’s cool. Its central courtyard is a delight – Andalusia incarnate in its Moorish flourishes, elegant cloisters and tinkling fountains; a giant palm tree rising to shield visitors from white-hot middays. Beyond, the Lemon Tree Garden (El Jardín de los Limoneros) is so lovely that it is eulogised in verse. The poet Antonio Machado, born in the palace in 1875, wrote that “my childhood is a memory of a patio in Seville, and a bright orchard where the lemon tree grows”. Almost 150 years later, this image is in-tact.

There are more al-fresco chairs and conversations along La Macarena’s bar-drag Calle Feria, and around the colossal plaza of Alameda de Hércules, where tapas restaurants hold court. And there are further signs of Seville’s eternal struggle with the sun. All along the retail avenue of Calle Sierpes, white drapes are strung between the buildings at roof level – canvas guardians protecting the shoppers below. Calles Rioja, Rosario, O’Donnell and Tetuán are similarly enhanced. Together, they create a labyrinth of covered walkways that seems to mimic the souks of Marrakech. The echo is appropriate. Sierpes funnels me south into North Africa – the Alcázar smiling, both as Seville’s most beautiful memory of the Moorish era, and its greatest example of a building designed to withstand the weather.

Plaza de EspanaCredit: Moment RF

The smile conceals a lie. While the palace was certainly founded in Moorish times – and plays up to these origins in its arches and alcoves – much of its fabric dates to the 14th century, when the Spanish crown had seized control. It was Pedro I who commissioned the iconic Patio de las Doncellas, with its long reflecting pool, pale marble walls and shaded perimeter – acknowledging not just the splendour of the former regime’s style of construction, but also the pragmatic benefits. Even on a winter day, it feels noticeably colder inside the courtyard, as if the sun cannot penetrate this haven for kings and queens.

Beyond the walls of the Alcázar, drifting away to the west, Seville meets the flow of the Guadalquivir (technically the Canal de Alfonso III; a side-branch of the river which runs parallel to the main currents), and changes pace. On the far side, Triana keeps its own counsel – not so much a neighbourhood as an outlier with its own attitude and identity. It has traditionally been a place of sailors and dockers, calloused hands pulling at ropes – 300m and a world away from the sophisticates and perfumed courtiers of Centro. But if some of its coarseness has been leavened by money and modernity, its togetherness is still visible on the hard line of the canal-adjacent Calle Pelay Correa. Midway along, two adjoining tapas bars, Bar Bistec and Bodega Siglo XVIII, duel for customers, their wares printed on chalkboards – sardines and prawns, anchovies, squid, salt-cod. The rivalry is friendly, the crowd outside spilling evenly through both doorways, the tiled floors inside covered with discarded napkins and cocktail sticks. A Sunday fiesta is in motion, pinned to the Iglesia de Santa Ana, opposite – a celebration on the street, in spite of the season. And there is that insistent colour once more, the walls of the church an undiluted orange.

The Triana neighbourhoodCredit: Moment RF

A block to the north, Calle Pureza carries me west, past cycle workshops and square-cut houses – until, on Plaza del Altozano, Triana finally embraces its gentrification. Opened in 1823, the Mercado de Triana must once have been a workhorse, a slurry of fish guts and manual labour. Now it deals in weeknight cookery classes at the Taller Andaluz de Cocina, and in those ubiquitous oranges – even if, these days, they are present at Bocasú, a chic patisserie where foodsmith Manuel Jara crafts choux pastry nuggets, glazed and filled with custard, in a rainbow of flavours – apple and raspberry, as well as clementine.

Elsewhere in the market, another outlet is selling Christmas gifts; cute trinkets and wood toys. The display is dusted with fake snow. Momentarily, the incongruity makes me laugh. In Seville, the concept of a frosty winter is so implausible, it has to be fabricated.

Getting there

British Airways (0344 493 0787; ba.com), easyJet (0330 365 5000; easyjet.com), Ryanair (0871 246 0000; ryanair.com) and Vueling (020 3514 3971; vueling.com) all fly to Seville from various British airports.