To ask for your seville and malaga recommendations

We stayed in a two bed self catering apartment in Calle Lumbreras in Seville recently. Had a tiny swimming pool but children liked it! We really enjoyed the Alcazar, bull ring tour and walking across the city. Also got the open top bus to get our bearings! Lovely place. If we returned, I’d like to stay around the Cathedral as that area looked great (cobbled streets, lots of restaurants etc)

There are loads of really nice hotels in Santa Cruz near the cathedral in Seville, where you can walk to most places from. It's a warren of tiny streets with some great places to eat. A fair few of the hotels use their roof space well with terraces, bars and little swimming pools. Several have family rooms - Abba hotel does, also casas de juderia, which is a big sprawling property of interconnected bits with little courtyards dotted around. There's also a few religious type place accommodations where the nuns rent rooms out.

I second the recommendation to stay in an apartment in Malaga. Anywhere in the old town is good as it's not that big, so you'll always be a short walk to the seafront. The food is amazing! Think we booked through Airbnb but I'd check booking.com too as they have different listings and I often find booking cheaper!

I did Malaga, Seville and Granada in one trip. I liked Seville the best, it is the prettiest in my opinion - Alcazar (brilliant) is free at some points (mondays?), and plenty of nice places to wander around, Plaza d'espana and the nice park with all of the expo buildings in from 1929. I liked Granada too, but not as much - the Alhambra is certainly worth doing but be prepared to be foot-sore and it's busy. I liked Malaga the least of the three, too many brits on drinking sprees, but I did do the Caminito Del Rey, which is amazing, possible by train, but you have to book. It is also nice just getting some downtime near the coast at Malaga (again, the warning of it being THE popular destination for holidaymakers - nothing wrong with it but it is what it is) . Getting between the three easily by train was a bit of a ballache, and we ended up hiring a car, which was cheap enough and as long as you park it out of town and bus in - you cannot drive comfortably in the centre of Seville unless you are a local. Long drives but the trains were a bit unpredictable and drawn out. Must admit, the Fado and Flamenco stuff wasn't my thing, but each to their own. We got an AirBNB in Seville (fab) and stayed in a cheap hotel in Granada (I did not want to drive in the city centre) and stayed in another AirBnB in Malaga after ditching car at airport and getting train in, which was nice enough but about 20 mins walk out. Have a great trip, they are all nice places with plenty to do. x

I’m in Spain at the moment, near Malaga, and was also near Granada at the weekend. But I think I am not seeing this as DH is Spanish

As someone who lives in Seville, I find this very hard to believe. Anti mass tourism sentiment is increasing slightly as locals are being priced out of the city, but why would restaurant owners send away customers? I imagine they got the wrong end of the stick.

I wouldn't worry about this at all OP. Tourists are generally made to feel very welcome.

And when you’ve been to Seville, go again in spring in time for the Feria de Abril.

It will take your breath away and make you hugely depressed in the same instant when you realise if the same thing happened in the uk it would be full of drunk twats in chav clothing fighting and the whole place would be covered in puke.

but as mentioned, get a map and walk about and see the sights and flamenco!

Let’s hope you don’t bump into the anti tourist protesters. A colleague who just returned from Seville was turned away from 2 restaurants for being English. Bizarre.

Oh yes! We booked in advance to go on the second evening of our stay in Seville and it worked out really well as that day had seen the highest rainfall they’d had in decades! We wandered the city and got soaking wet and then spent the evening unwinding at the spa- it was wonderful. But even there, they had issues with the rain as the building had an interior courtyard which was roofless (same in our hotel and evidently common in Seville buildings) and just goes to show how unused to the rain they are as they were having to move furniture and put buckets down in various places! Lots of the cobbled streets and pathways were flooded too. The spa more than made up for it all though.

In Málaga, near the Roman theatre is a famous bar called Bil-Bil, definitely worth a drink to look at all 5h3 famous people in photos.

I love them both but Seville ❤️. Book the Alcazar before you go.

I've been to Malaga several times.

1st time, we stayed at this hotel which has a pool. https://www.nh-hotels.com/en/hotel/nh-malaga?utm_campaign=local-gmb&utm_medium=organic_search&utm_source=google_gmb

Subsequent times we stayed at these apartments which are very near the atazazanas fruit/veg market. We preferred here to the hotel, because we could eat out, or have breakast in the room etc. We also had a balcony and alot more space than a little hotel room.
https://www.santacruz-apartments.com/index.php?lng=en

Both are an easy walk to the beach and all the shops. Also convenient for the bus with goes to/from the airport which used to be 3euro each.

For a day trip from Malaga, I'd recommend getting the train to Ronda. They have a famous bridge and some great restaurants. I'm not a specific bridge fan/bridge spotter, but it really was a lovely trip and one of my highlights from Malaga.

We have booked for November, I think the area is called Santa Cruz, not sure what this area is in terms of history, I like to do a bit of research before we get there. Lovely flat.

Also Casa matthias is an amazing bar with locals playing and singing live flamenco music. It's a bit of a dive with cigarettes butt's all over the floor but it's honestly amazing and feels really authentic. Rick Stein also went there and features it in one of his long weekend programmes

I don't agree with avoiding Trianna. We went to the Trianna market a few times from the city centre over the weekend and it was brilliant. We went round it during the day and ate oysters and drank cava then attended a paella cooking class in the evening. It was fantastic!

Very jealous, both are fantastic cities.

Aire baths Sevilla is heavenly.

Oh, I’m so envious- Seville is absolutely divine. We had a long weekend there a couple of years ago and loved it. We stayed at a small boutique hotel called La Casa del Maestro, a short walk from the city centre. Near our hotel we found a street lined with lemon trees and full of tapas bars. We couldn’t believe how cheap the food was (and it was, of course, delicious). We saw some flamenco on our last day at La Plaza de España (which is an absolute must-see). It was magical. Have a wonderful time.

Don't forget the flamenco dancing in Seville!