There are so many beautiful palaces in Seville that it’s hard to choose which one to visit first. The most highlighted one is the Real Alcazar, but you know what, let’s be original and discover another one. I’d recommend visiting Casa de Pilatos, which is absolutely stunning and way less crowded.

The palace is divided in both a summer and a winter palace. It beautifully combines Italian renaissance and the mudejar elements you see on so many buildings in this lovely city. Walls, floors and ceilings are all decorated beautifully and a statue of Athena is looking over you when you come into the palace.

The summer palace is colorful, bright and open to the patio and lovely lush gardens that are filled with olive trees. There were birds singing and butterflies fluttering around. It was all so lovely. And it was perfectly calm. There weren’t too many people inside, so you could just take your time, walk at your own pace and take it all in, enjoying the sun and the beautiful building.

The ticket we bought included an audiotour and a guided tour of the winter palace, upstairs. Up here, you could see the same architecture, but the rooms were furnished with thick tapestries, paintings, and lush carpets. Everything was filled with trinkets and it felt very homey, though a little foreign due to the mudejar style that was very prominent.

After the palace, it was time for icecream! I could really get used to the weather in Spain, though I wouldn’t say no to some icecream now and then! We found this cute little icecream parlor that sold these lovely rose icecreams. It was called Amorino, and apparently, it’s all over Europe, though I’ve never seen it before. Anyway, this was so pretty that I took so many pictures that eventually, my macaron fell off… Nevertheless, the icecream was really good, even without it! We took our icecreams to a little market nearby on Plaza del Duque de la Victoria.

We hadn’t visited a museum yet, so it was about time. The Museo des bellas artes was close so we hopped in for a bit. The museum was free for European tourists (and only a few euros for non-European tourists) so that was nice!

The museum had a lovely patio and the corridors surrounding it were filled with beautiful art. Most if it was religious, which isn’t really my thing, but wat I did love were the ceilings! Whole scenes were depicted on them and they looked beautiful. If you decide to visit the Museo des bellas artes, make sure to look up in each and every room!
After wandering around a bit, I was getting really tired and the siësta had already started, so we headed back to our hotel to get some rest. We slept a bit, had some buns we bought the day before and decided to go for a swim.

It was a lovely afternoon. We stayed there longer than we firstly intended to, but we didn’t care. It was nice to just be able to relax a bit and we lounged and swimmed and read until it was time for dinner!

The previous night we had had tapas so today we wanted to try another Spanish dish, namely Paella! I had never tried it and sometimes I can be squirmy with food, so I wanted to know beforehand what I was going to eat. We walked and walked, past restaurants that just said: ‘Paella with meat or Paella with fish’, but didn’t specify what kind of meat or fish, so we went on. We came across restaurant with menus that had little pictures of the food. Some looked disgusting, so we went on. There was one restaurant that served paella with rabbit, but no. Boyfriend wanted to eat fish, so all the places that didn’t have fish were out of the question as well. Tired and frustrated, we decided to find something else and then we came across l’Oca Giuliva, which was a cute little Italian place and we decided to settle. I’m so glad we did because this food was amazing ♥

I really loved this place. The ambience was lovely, the staff was really nice and oh.my.good the food. I had the lasagne and it was the best I ever had (apart from the one I had in Venice, but that’s Italy so that doesn’t count) and boyfriend had the four cheese gnocchi which was really good too. I couldn’t stop stealing food off his plate!
For dessert, we shared a cherry cheesecake which was really delicious too. If you love Italian food and you’re visiting Seville, make sure to have dinner at l’Oca Giuliva, you won’t regret it!