Seville Cathedral rooftop tour – is it worth it?
The Seville Cathedral rooftop tour might be the hottest ticket in town for visitors to Seville, but what should you expect, and is it worth the ticket price? Read on for my review and some tips for your visit.
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Seville is full of amazing things to do – the Real Alcazar palace and gardens, the Metropol Parasol, the gorgeous Plaza de Espana, the Torre del Oro and of course, the magnificent gothic cathedral.
When we visited Seville in February 2018 we hadn’t realised that there was another way to see the cathedral other than the normal entrance ticket, but when we got to the ticket desk we saw a poster for a different option – the Cathedral Roofs guided tour.
The tour that day was already full and we were advised to come back the next day to buy our tickets. We didn’t want to risk it though so we bought our tickets online.
How to buy tickets for the Seville Cathedral rooftop tour
There are a maximum of six rooftop tours each day, with only one or two in English – the others are in Spanish or French. Just 25 people can go on each tour, so unsurprisingly, tickets sell out quickly!
There are two ways to buy tickets for the tour. You can visit the ticket desk in person to buy tickets for tours that day (that is, if there are any left). Alternatively, you can buy tickets online days or weeks in advance on the official Cathedral website. If you’ve got your heart set on visiting the Cathedral rooftops then I’d definitely recommend buying your tickets online.
The terms and conditions for online tickets say you need to print them out. We were already in Seville when we bought our tickets and didn’t have a printer in our AirBnB; after a bit of Googling we found Tourist House who printed our tickets for us from the PDFs we’d been sent, for a couple of euro. We needn’t have worried though, plenty of people on our tour just showed their tickets on their phones and that seemed to be ok with the guide.
How much does the cathedral roof tour cost?
The rooftop tour is priced at €15 per person (prices correct at September 2019). The tour price includes general entry to the cathedral as well as the Giralda bell tower and the Church of El Salvador which is 600 metres away on the nearby Plaza del Salvador. From the day you enter the first church, you have two more days to visit the other sights. Entry tickets to the cathedral normally cost €9, so at only €6 extra, the rooftop tour is really good value for money.
If you want to have a proper look around the cathedral interior, make sure you check the opening times. We’d planned to do the tour and then wander around the inside, but unfortunately the cathedral was closing just 30 minutes after the end of our tour. If this happens to you, it is possible to do it the other way around and see the interior before going up to the roof; if you decide to take this option, just meet your guide on the inside of the meeting point door rather than on the street side.
What to expect on the rooftop tour
We gathered outside a huge arched door on Avenida de la Constitución, around the corner from the main visitor entrance to the Cathedral. The instructions say to be at the meeting point 10 minutes before the start of the tour. As the time approached, a tiny door opened and our guide appeared.
He began the tour by ticking off our names on his list, then led us into a small side chapel where we all picked up headphones and radio receivers so we’d be able to hear his commentary as we clambered around the roofs of the cathedral. Once we were kitted out (no hard hats or harnesses are required for the tour, it’s perfectly safe!), he took us across the nave to Christopher Columbus’s tomb, before unlocking another tiny door in the base of a pillar and taking us into the secret part of the cathedral.
Once through the door, we climbed the first of many narrow spiral staircases up to the first level. On the way up, he pointed out masons’ marks made by the craftsmen who built these massive walls.
Stood on the roof, with the Real Alcazar gardens below us, we had plenty of time to take photos before the tour continued.
The guide showed us more masons’ marks, then pointed out some cracked terracotta urns placed along one wall. The building method they used for the roof is pretty much unique to Seville – because the climate in that part of Spain is so hot and dry, they didn’t need to build the pointed roof structure that you normally see on Gothic cathedrals, as there’s very little water that needs to run off. Instead, they built shallow coverings over the arches of the cathedral and filled them with broken terracotta pots for strength as they were both light and cheap.
Another fascinating aspect to Seville cathedral is its varied history – it was originally built as a mosque before the Reconquista, and its bell tower, the famous La Giralda, was its minaret.
When Seville was captured by the Christian King Ferdinand III, the mosque was converted overnight into a cathedral but kept many of its Islamic features. Over the centuries the cathedral was renovated, restyled, suffered the effects of earthquakes and saw changing fashions in architecture. Our guide pointed out where Gothic architecture turns into the Renaissance style, demonstrating the 100-year length of the rebuilding project.
Next, our Seville Cathedral rooftop tour took us to an even higher area, on top of a domed chapel and directly overlooking the Giralda bell tower. I felt very lucky to be in such a small group in such a special place.
From there, our guide led us down another staircase, up another and onto the roof of the nave, showing us where all those broken terracotta pots had ended up so many centuries ago. From this part of the tour the views over Seville were truly incredible.
The next part was my favourite; we went down a much shorter spiral staircase and emerged on a narrow walkway inside the cathedral, high above the nave. From this height, the people down below looked absolutely tiny, the huge stained glass window in the end wall more vivid and beautiful close-up, and the raw, unfinished backs of the wooden angel structures strangely touching.
The final part of the tour took us back onto the roof and underneath some of the awesome flying buttresses. The guide explained the architectural theory behind these structures and answered our questions about the cathedral.
Finally, he led us down yet another narrow spiral staircase, popping us out through another hidden door, much to the surprise of the other tourists in that part of the cathedral.
Is the Seville Cathedral rooftop tour worth it?
100% yes. The rooftop guided tour is fascinating, exciting and unforgettable, as well as being really great value for money compared to the standard ticket.
Check out more guided tours of Seville Cathedral
Six tips for taking the Seville Cathedral rooftop tour
- The tour may not be for you if you’re afraid of heights or if you don’t like confined spaces. The tour is mostly in high places and there are lot of narrow ledges and tight winding staircases.
- It doesn’t feel dangerous at any point, however – you won’t need to wear a hard hat or harness, and you won’t be at any risk of falling!
- Don’t bring big bags; you need to be able to move easily and sometimes squeeze through narrow doorways.
- Bring a bottle of water, wear sunscreen and maybe a hat too, especially in the summer. There are lots of sections of the tour when you’ll be out in the open.
- Wear comfortable shoes; trainers are ideal.
- Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to take the tour.
Have you taken the Seville Cathedral rooftop tour? Is it on your must-see list for Seville?
Maybe a silly question… but being a 90 min tour, wondering if there is any toilet facility along the route?
Hi Stella, I’m afraid not, you’re up away from the facilities in the cathedral for the whole tour
I would LOVE to do this tour . Could you please tell me more about the stairs …. are they a low rise step or do they have a high rise ???? would you remember around how many steps were in each flight … and if there were places to rest for people who neeeded to catch their breadth ?? Thanks
Hi! The steps are mostly steep and narrow spiral staircases that go up inside the pillars of the cathedral, but the tour is over a lot of levels, and they’ve designed it so that you don’t have to climb the full height of the cathedral in one go! At a guess I would say that the tallest flight of steps was around 3 storeys – but like I say they’re narrow and dark, and you’re in a group, so nobody’s going very fast. When you’ve done one set of steps there’s a pause while the guide tells you about where you are, so there’s quite a bit of time to catch your breath if you need to. Our group was made up of people of all ages and fitness levels (I’d put myself near the bottom of the fit-unfit scale!) and we all managed it. I would say don’t take a big bag though. Hope that helps!
Hey, that is a very helpful blog post. Do you know if you can visit the church of El Salvador on a different day than the visit to the Cathedral? The tour I booked starts at 15.00 and I don’t think we will have time to go to the other church afterwards.
This answer is probably too late for you but it may benefit others. I’m in Sevilla right now and you have a 3-day window to visit the other church. I believe the day you visit the first church counts as day 1.
Thanks for replying, that’s really useful information! I’ll add it to the post 🙂
I’m not sure but I think the tickets may have to be used on the same day. If anyone reading this knows different please let me know!
They allow to use the ticket up to next day, but you have to let the guide know so that they put you on the list. We took the tour at 12 noon in Spanish and after the rooftop we went out for lunch and later came back to climb the Giralda. So if you get out and come back they must put you on a list We had printed tickets and they let us in again, but they questioned us for not being on the list.
Hello Helen,
Thanks for the great article! I loved it, and I’m definitely planning to visit Seville Cathedral rooftop tour.
I have one concern about the online ticket.
I’m not pretty sure about the exact timing of my visit, the website asks for an exact time. What is the validation period of my pre-booked online ticket, what if I missed the time I selected in the website, will I be able to enter the cathedral after that or I have to be very punctual?
Thanks in advance!
When we booked our tour, the time we booked was the time of the tour, so if you’re not there before the ticket time, you won’t get to do the tour at all.
The ticket is valid for entry to the cathedral either before or after, just watch out because the cathedral actually closes for services etc quite a lot – our tour was in the morning and the cathedral closed half an hour after the end of our tour. We were actually going to the airport for our flight back home straight afterwards so it wasn’t too much of a problem but I think if we’d known that our ticket had been valid before the tour we’d have taken advantage of it and turned up early.
Hope you have a great trip to Seville!