Extra Days in or around Sevilla

I flew to Lisbon, Portugal after my “Best of Spain tour.” Quick 1 hour flight and the flight home to the U.S. timing was so much more convenient for me. I loved Lisbon and also spent a few days at the beach in Cascais, which a train ride from Lisbon. Enjoy your tour- it is truly fabulous and one of my very favorite RS tours I’ve been on!

**edited to add- I think on the tour, we took a horse and carriage ride (as part of the tour) to the Plaza de Espana, but just got out and walked around and took some pictures and didn’t spend any significant time there, but did get to see it!

My most memorable activity in Sevilla was the Cathedral Rooftop Tour:
https://www.catedraldesevilla.es/visita-cultural/visitas-guiadas/visita-a-las-cubiertas/

(I can be paralyzed by my fear of heights, but this tour did not bother me - we spent a lot of time walking across the expanse of the rooftop, and when we were walking along the perimeters, the thick walls felt very safe.)

My favorite live performances are any type of dance, so I saw several Flamenco shows in Sevilla, which I wrote about in my trip report, in the "A WEEK IN SEVILLA" section:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/november-getaway-in-andalusia

My favorites were the performances at the Museum of Flamenco Dance and at Casa de la Memoria. More details in the "Flamenco Performances" section.

or go see Plaza de Espana

Hah, funny you should mention .... that one is a "don't miss" that I managed to miss (despite my own intentions) anyway.

I've heard it's fabulous ;-)

The rooftop tour of the Cathedral was the highlight of our time in Seville too. Not at all scary, just gorgeous views and a lot of fun. Highly recommend.

If you are on the Best of Spain, you will visit the Plaza Espana on the last day. It's supposed to be a surprise but our tour guide arranged several horse carriages for our group of 20 that went to the Plaza Espana before our final dinner.

I suggest a trip to Cordoba to see the Mesquita. You can do it as a day trip or, as we did, left Seville, took the train and spent two nights in Cordoba before training onto Madrid where we flew home from.

Seville has this wonderful wooden structure called las Setas de Sevilla, but we were able to see it during. our free time in Seville while on tour.

Also, we were NOT impressed by the flamenco we saw in Seville. It was too sedate. We saw one in Barcelona years before that was outstanding. There was sweat pouring out of all the dancers during their energetic performance and they were putting it all out there. The one we saw in Seville, the dancers were just phoning it in.
So I'd do the flamenco visit that the tour brings you too and decide for yourself, if you really want to attend another mediocre Flamenco performance.

We loved the cooking class and tapas tour we did in Sevilla, as well as the rooftop cathedral tour, and we liked the flamenco and dinner at Table Arenal.

Sevilla is just a lovely city to hang out in!

And, if your tour isn’t taking you to Cordova, highly recommend it!

The top side trip from Seville would be Cordoba, for sure. Cordoba's omission from the tour itinerary is an odd choice.

Carmona is also a worthwhile side trip from Seville.

The are the Roman ruins at nearby Itálica if you haven’t seen ruins previously. Another possibility is a visit to Doñana National Park or Zafra. If you had a rental car for a day maybe Jerez de los Caballeros and Zafra, or Zafra and Mérida.