This post discusses the following places in Seville (my detailed Google Map at the very bottom of this post):
Seville Old Town Center || Guadalquivir River
Cathedral || Plaza Nueva || Ayuntamiento de Sevilla || Avenida de la Constitucion || Puerta de Jerez || Calle Tetuan || Calle Sierpes || La Campana
Santa Cruz || Arenal
Alameda || Macarena || San Vincente
Alfalfa || Encarnacion-Regina || Feria || Museo
Plaza de Armas bus station || Plaza del Duque || Plaza de la Encarnacion || Plaza Ponce de Leon || Puerta Osario
Santa Justa railway station || Nervion || Seville San Pablo Airport
Prado de San Sebastian bus station || San Bernardo
Triana || Los Remedios
Seville Old Town Center, Guadalquivir River
The center of Seville is the Old Town (the Casco Antiguo or Centro Historico, or otherwise just referred to as Centro) - in the shape of a kind of vertical oval - with its narrow winding roads and alleys, and a north-east section of its ancient city walls still standing in part of the Macarena neighborhood, hence known as Muralla de la Macarena.
The west side of the oval is bound by what was the great Guadalquivir River (the river that runs past Cordoba then on to Seville - whose expansive valley is the very reason for the importance of this region to Spain). Ostensibly to stem flooding, this vast convex bend in the Guadalquivir was blocked off at the north end of town, then a much straighter new channel was formed for the river further west of the city, and the old part of the river next to Seville was renamed Canal de Alfonso XII. So if you head west from Seville, you will eventually cross two "rivers".
(my more detailed Google Map of Seville that also shows the straighter new Guadalquivir channel west of the city, at bottom of this post)
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| The city center of Seville, from Wikipedia.org |
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| Seville, further down the important Guadalquivir Valley from Cordoba - in relation to Madrid & Valencia, with Cadiz and Malaga nearby - from ArcGis My Map |
Triana, Los Remedios
Across this river-canal immediately to the west of the old centre is the district known as Triana, and to the south of Triana is Los Remedios. As they have a canal on one side and the new river course on the other side, this large body of land, home to tens of thousands of people, is almost like a large long island running north to south (SEE my Google Map right at he bottom of this post).
You can see Triana and Los Remedios, plus the various neighborhood "barrios" of Seville's Centro on the first Wikipedia map above.
The map below from this commercial website probably gives a better indication of well-known neighborhoods, with a list of names of areas within the old town that are popularly used. (Notice that the city of Seville is often represented in printed maps in an unconventional fashion with a horizontal north-south axis.)
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Plaza de Armas, Plaza del Duque, Plaza de la Encarnacion, Plaza Ponce de Leon, Puerta Osario
(map pins for all the places mentioned in this post can be found in my more detailed Google Map at the bottom of this post)
You can imagine that the oval of the old town is cut in half from the west to east by a continuous passage of variously named streets (from bottom to top in the above map), beginning on the northern side of the Plaza de Armas regional bus station which is at the peak of the bend in the old Guadalquivir River in the middle of the west side of Seville old town, then running eastward past Plaza del Duque, then Plaza de la Encarnacion, then Plaza Ponce de Leon, and exiting at Puerta Osario (the old name for one of the previous city gates) on the east side. (From Plaza del Duque, eventually passing Puerta Osario, is naturally a very busy route taken by a number of buses.)
Puerta de Jerez, Avenida de la Constitucion, Cathedral, Plaza Nueva, Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, Calle Tetuan, Calle Sierpes, La Campana
The southern half can be seen to be dissected by the passage of Avenida de la Constitucion, running northward from Puerta de Jerez (there's an underground metro station there), past the front of the vast Cathedral, then skirting by City Hall (Ayuntamiento de Sevilla) and Plaza Nueva along the west, and continuing northward along the parallel twin shopping streets of Calle Tetuan and Calle Sierpes, which both end - when they meet the east-west axis mentioned above - at the small plaza known as La Campana (popular with fast food outlets) - just diagonally opposite Plaza del Duque (an important local bus terminal).
Santa Cruz, Arenal
The area west of Avenida de la Constitucion towards the river, can be considered Arenal - containing Seville's bullfighting stadium, the Real Mestranza (Wikip.), and the imposing Torre del Oro watchtower (Golden Tower) on the banks of the Guadalquivir. And the sector east of the avenue and behind the Cathedral (the old Jewish Quarter) could all be considered as the "tourist ghetto" of Santa Cruz - or should I say the epicenter of conventional tourist activity in Seville.
Alameda, Macarena, San Vincente
The main feature to the north of this halfway line is the Alameda de Hercules (Mall of Hercules), a long public plaza surrounded by bars and restaurants, that runs north to south, crowned with a pair of Roman columns at either end (on one of which perches a statue of Hercules). The area around here is referred to as "Alameda". Between Alameda and the river to the west is the San Vincente neighborhood. The neighborhood to the east of Alameda is Macarena. (But notice too in the top Wikipedia map that another larger district of Macarena lies beyond the bounds of the old town to its north.)
Alfalfa, Encarnacion-Regina, Feria, Museo
In the map above, a vast middle east-west swathe is referred to as "El Centro". The Wikipedia map of central barrios more helpfully identifies areas such as the western neighborhood of Museo (around Seville's Museum of Fine Arts, which is not far from the Plaza de Armas regional bus station). And there is the central neighborhood of "Encarnacion-Regina" around Plaza de la Encarnacion (and its giant mushroom-shaped Metropol Parasol) and the quaint shopping lane of Calle Regina that runs northward behind the plaza. Just to the south of that is "Alfalfa" around the pretty Plaza de la Alfalfa (not that easy for non-locals to find). And to the north of Regina is the neighborhood of "Feria", named after an important north-south street and centered around a nice little municipal market of the same name (Feria Market on Google Map).
Santa Justa, Nervion, Seville San Pablo Airport
As I said, the Wikipedia map shows the district of Macarena to the north of the old town. On its east side is the district of Nervion, which is a little more modern and has its own Nervion Plaza shopping mall next to the home stadium of Sevilla Football Club. Then a district adjoining the north-east of Seville Centre contains the railway station in Santa Justa which now serves as the main railway station for Seville. The main traffic thoroughfare running next to the station, Avenida de Kansas City (you knew Seville's sister city is Kansas, right?) will take you straight past Seville's San Pablo airport around 10 km northeast of the center (Seville Airport on Google Map).
There is a special bus service, Line EA Especial Aeropuerto, with stops at Santa Justa train station, San Bernardo, Av. Carlos V for the Prado de San Sebastian regional bus station for southern and eastern routes, finally terminating at the larger Plaza de Armas regional bus station on the Guadalquivir river side of the town center. Alternative airports to Seville's main airport include Jerez Airport for the town of Jerez de la Frontera - popular with some Ryanair passengers - which is about 80 km southwest of Seville by bus or train, almost all the way to Cadiz; then there is Malaga Airport on the Mediterranean coast, southeast of Seville over 200km away by bus or train, which - as the gateway to the Costa del Sol and Spain's fourth busiest airport only behind Madrid, Barcelona and Mallorca - has around double the number of flights and about quadruple the number of passengers compared to Seville Airport.
Prado de San Sebastian, San Bernardo
There are also two important places just east of the southern tip of the Centro Historico oval, near where Avenida de Carlos V begins and heading east: Prado de San Sebastian (sometimes simply referred to as "Prado") is an important local bus terminal as well as containing the second regional bus station for Seville (for destinations to the south and east of Seville - it is actually the older original one before a newer one was built on a redevelopment site at Plaza de Armas). Prado de San Sebastian also has an underground station as part of the single metro line that continues westwards to Puerta de Jerez (just south of the Cathedral) and beyond. One metro stop east of Prado de San Sebastian is San Bernardo. San Bernardo is also a hub as it has its underground metro station, and is also the present terminus for Seville's short tram line, a service confusingly called the "MetroCentro", whose terminus at the other end is Plaza Nueva, running past Prado de San Sebastian, Puerta de Jerez, and Archivo de Indias (next to the Cathedral) along the way. And San Bernardo also has a stop on the RENFE rail line, part of the small Cercanias Sevilla network (map scheme), with the next stop northward being the main station at Santa Justa. (The tram line was supposed to be extended and curl around northward to an interchange terminus at Santa Justa station, but that has been suspended.)
So there you go! When anyone wants to describe the location of a place in Seville for you, or to give you directions, then this is more than an ordinary tourist will ever need to know.
Here below is a picture I've linked to a Google Map of Seville I've made, where you can refer to most of the places mentioned above:
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