We Walked on the Roof of a Cathedral
Seville Cathedral Rooftop Tour
Just across the street from the Real Alcazar in Seville is the Seville Cathedral. It is probably the second most-visited tourist attraction in the city after the palace, and for good reason — it is the third largest cathedral in the world.
Most people buy tickets for 9 Euros (and it is free on Mondays) but we chose to purchase a rooftop tour for 15 Euros, which is quite good value. The only catch is that there are only one or two tours a day in English (with other tours conducted in other languages). We thought long and hard about purchasing the tour because we went on a Monday — a day when entry to the common areas of the cathedral is free, but still calls for 15 Euros for the rooftop tour. So we felt like we were losing out, even though we weren’t really. On top of that there’s a 1 Euro “management fee” for buying the tour online, which we decided to do because the tour only has 25 spots and typically sells out.
In the end, we ended up coughing up the money and it was a worthwhile decision!
The ticket allows access to the cathedral floor and we chose to explore that before the tour began. Although not as big as St. Peter’s Basilica, it is still enormously tall inside.
One of the highlights inside is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. This was a pleasant surprise to discover, and we had one of those moments where we realized we were really were HERE, seeing THIS, and it wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t quit our jobs to travel full time.
The cathedral also has a bell tower with ramps instead of stairs, but it wasn’t until we were on the rooftop tour that we really appreciated the architecture of the building. The guide explained to us that the site was originally a mosque but was converted into a Christian church when the city was conquered. Over time, an earthquake damaged part of the church and so it was rebuilt as a grand cathedral; however, some of the mosque still remains, including the courtyard and the bell tower.
Our rooftop tour was in the late afternoon and lasted an hour and a half. The time of day was spectacular for sunset photos of the roof and cityscape, standing at the buttresses and pinnacles.
There aren’t many places in the world where you can get up on a cathedral roof so this felt quite special. We got up to the rooftop dome at Sacré-Coeur in Paris, but that did not include an informative architectural and historical tour like this one. If you’re ever in Seville, I would recommend taking the Seville Cathedral rooftop tour.
