How we spent 48 hours in Seville on a budget
The constraint that forced good decisions
We had 48 hours in Seville and a combined budget for both of us of €200 for everything other than the accommodation we’d already paid for (a €68/night hostel private room near the Alameda de Hércules — not glamorous, fully functional, with its own bathroom and a shared rooftop terrace that served filtered coffee in the morning for €1.50).
That’s €100 per person for two days: entry fees, food, drink, and any transport. We made it work, and we ate better than we expected to.
Here is our exact schedule and what we spent.
Day one
7:30 am: Breakfast at the Mercado de Triana. Two pan con tomate (bread with rubbed tomato and olive oil) and two coffees. €6 total. This market has been here since 1823 and the bars inside serve the kind of breakfast that powers market traders — dense, cheap, honest. We ate at the counter at La Cantina.
9:30 am: The Real Alcázar. We’d booked timed entry online for €16.50 each. This was the only significant paid entry we’d planned. The Alcázar is not optional if you have any interest in architecture or history — the Mudéjar craftsmanship in the Salón de Embajadores alone is worth the price of entry, and the gardens in May were in full bloom. We spent two hours and could have spent three.
12:00 pm: Walk through Santa Cruz and the Cathedral exterior without entering. The Cathedral entry (€12 each) was not in our budget for this trip. We’ve seen it before; if this was your first time, the calculus would shift. The Giralda is visible from the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes for free and is, architecturally, the defining image of Seville.
1:00 pm: Lunch at Bar Eslava on Calle Eslava, Barrio de San Lorenzo. This is a genuinely celebrated tapas bar — it won national awards for its solomillo al whisky (€7.50) — and remains accessible by arriving at 1 pm for the first lunch seating before it fills. We spent €24 for two: three tapas each plus two glasses of house wine. Outstanding value for the quality.
3:30 pm: Free afternoon in Triana. The Castillo de San Jorge museum is free and genuinely interesting on the history of the Spanish Inquisition. We also browsed the ceramics workshops on Calle Alfarería. Bought one small tile as a souvenir: €6.
7:00 pm: Walk along the Guadalquivir riverfront (Calle Betis, Triana side). This costs nothing and is one of the better evening promenades in Spain — the light was soft, the Cathedral was visible across the river, a group of students were playing guitar near the bridge. We sat on the riverbank.
9:00 pm: Tapas dinner at Bar Santa Ana (Calle Pureza, Triana). No reservations, order at the bar. We had: espinacas con garbanzos, gambas al ajillo, croquetas de jamón, and two beers each. Total: €28.
Day one total: €95.50 for two (€47.75 each, including the Alcázar tickets)
Day two
8:00 am: Free morning in the Parque de María Luisa. The park is one of Seville’s best free assets — formal Baroque design, orange and eucalyptus trees, the striking Mudéjar-influenced pavilions from the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition. We walked for an hour.
10:00 am: Plaza de España. Also free. The 1929 exposition complex with its painted tile panels, boat hire on the central canal (€6 each for 35 minutes — entirely worth it), and the curved colonnade arcade. The tile panels — one per Spanish province, each depicting local geography and history — are a genuinely absorbing hour of reading if you’re interested in Spanish history.
12:30 pm: The Metropol Parasol (Las Setas). Entry to the rooftop walkway: €5 each, including one drink. The panoramic view from up here at noon gave us our best orientation of the whole city. We had our included beers looking south toward the Cathedral.
2:00 pm: Lunch at Taberna El Bacalao, Calle Placentines, near the Cathedral. Menú del día: €12.50 each, three courses including bread, water, and a glass of wine. The bacalao (salt cod) with tomato was the correct choice.
4:00 pm: Afternoon in El Arenal. The Maestranza bullring exterior on the Paseo de Colón (we didn’t pay for the museum visit), the Torre del Oro from outside (€3 each to enter the naval museum inside — we chose not to this trip), a slow walk along the waterfront.
7:00 pm: Pre-dinner drink at Casa Morales on Calle García de Vinuesa. A glass of manzanilla from clay vessels set in the wall: €1.50 each. One of the oldest bars in Seville, one of the cheapest, one of the best.
9:00 pm: Final dinner at La Flor de Toranzo near the Alameda. This is a neighbourhood bar rather than a tourist-facing restaurant — the Alameda area rewards walking around at this hour looking for places where the clientele is local. We ate well for €26 for two.
Day two total: €88 for two (€44 each)
The final tally
Two full days: €183.50 combined, under our €200 budget with money left for the train back to Seville airport.
We didn’t feel deprived. We didn’t skip anything we cared about. We ate well at every meal by eating at the counter, arriving early, and choosing bars over restaurant-format dining at the main sights.
The key insight: Seville’s dual pricing isn’t a myth or an exaggeration. The same glass of Cruzcampo costs €2.20 at the bar counter and €4.50 on a terrace fifty metres from the Cathedral. The same gambas al ajillo in a Santa Cruz tourist-facing restaurant is €11; in a Triana barrio bar, it’s €6.50. Same dish. Same city. You choose.
Our Seville on a budget guide covers the full breakdown of costs and savings strategies. The 2-day Seville itinerary gives a structured version of what we did, with alternatives.
