Giralda

Overview

The Giralda is the bell tower of Seville Cathedral, built between 1184 and 1198 as the minaret of the Almohad great mosque and given a Renaissance belfry in the 1560s. Two buildings are stacked in one tower, and the join is obvious from the street: a plain brick Islamic shaft for the lower two thirds, then a stone Christian lantern of shrinking tiers with a bronze weather vane on top. It has been the reference point of the city since the Middle Ages, and it is still the thing you navigate by when the lanes of the old centre stop making sense.

There is no separate ticket for the tower. You climb it on the combined Cathedral and Giralda ticket, 13 euros online and 14 at the ticket office, and since the route was reorganised the visit now begins at the Giralda rather than ending there. The cathedral itself gets a page of its own here: see Seville Cathedral for the altarpiece, the chapels and the rest of the interior.

The climb is the point. There are no stairs for almost the whole ascent, just 35 ramps spiralling around seven vaulted chambers at the core, built wide and high enough for what one chronicler of the period listed as beasts of burden, people and the custodians. At roughly 95 metres to the top of the belfry you come out beside the bells with the cathedral roof below you, the Reales Alcázares and their gardens next door, and the Guadalquivir off to one side.

History

The mosque came first. Caliph Abu Ya’qub Yusuf commissioned it in 1171 to replace the 9th-century Mosque of Ibn ‘Addabas, which the congregation had outgrown, and put the Sevillian architect Ahmad Ibn Baso in charge. An existing city sewer ran through the site and had to be rerouted to take the broad foundation, which cost four years on its own. The building was finished by 1176 apart from its minaret, though Friday prayer was not held there until 1182.

The minaret was ordered in 1184 and immediately lost both its makers. Ibn Baso died that year, and a month and a half later so did the caliph, at the siege of Santarem. Work restarted under his son Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, stalled again, and only got going properly in 1188. Three architects show in the fabric: Ibn Baso laid the cut-stone base, the Maghrebi builder Ali al-Ghumari raised the brick shaft, and the Sicilian Abu Layth al-Siqilli added the small upper shaft that the belfry now wraps around. On 10 March 1198 the tower was capped with its jamur, four spheres of gold or bronze, to mark al-Mansur’s victory over Alfonso VIII four years earlier.

Seville fell to Castile in 1248 and the mosque was converted rather than demolished, the minaret becoming a bell tower. Neither survived the next century well. An earthquake in 1356 wrecked much of the mosque and brought down the four spheres, which were replaced in 1400 with a cross and a bell, and at about the same time the tower received the first public striking clock in Spain. By 1433 the chapter had begun the Gothic cathedral that stands there now. Local stone and masons were both scarce, so timber and stone were shipped in from as far as Germany and the Netherlands, and the work took 73 years to 1506.

The tower got its Christian top between 1558 and 1568, when Hernan Ruiz the Younger replaced the damaged upper section with the belfry you see. Its lowest stage is as wide as the Almohad shaft and hangs the bells in five openings on each face; above that the tiers narrow, square then round, decorated with black tile and with the stone urns Sevillians call carambolas. Around the square stages runs the inscription TURRIS FORTISSIMA NOMEN DNI, from the eighteenth Proverb: the name of the Lord is a fortified tower.

Being 95 metres up and made of thin cast bronze has consequences. The Giraldillo was damaged in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and not properly repaired until 1770, when it was taken apart and its internal supports replaced. Partial work in 1980 and 1981 let researchers examine it closely for the first time and the verdict was poor. In 1999 it came down altogether and went to the Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute, with a replica standing in for six years; the restored original went back up in 2005, wired with instruments to monitor its condition.

UNESCO listed the cathedral, the Giralda, the Alcazar and the General Archive of the Indies together in 1987. Long before that the design was already being copied. Bell towers around the province, above all at Lebrija and at Carmona, are known locally as giraldillas, and American architects worked through a Giralda phase of their own.

Visiting

One ticket covers the cathedral, the Giralda and the Church of El Salvador: 13 euros online, 14 at the ticket office, 7 and 8 reduced for over-65s, students up to 25, holders of a 33 to 65 per cent disability certificate and adult members of large families. Entry is free for children up to 13 with an adult, for disability above 65 per cent and for unemployed Spanish nationals, all on production of an official document. Sunday afternoons from 16:30 to 18:00 are free to everyone except on holidays, but you must reserve online first and capacity is limited.

Standard hours are Monday to Saturday 11:00 to 18:00 and Sunday 14:30 to 19:00, with access and the Giralda closing at 17:00. Once summer time starts, closing moves an hour later and the tower stays open to 18:00. July and August run on their own schedule for the cult of the Virgen de los Reyes: Monday to Saturday 09:30 to 18:00 with the tower closing at 17:00, Sundays 12:30 to 19:00 with the tower closing at 18:00. Allow about 75 minutes for the whole thing. Worship comes first and the timetable can move for it, so check the day’s agenda before you set out.

Online tickets go in through the Puerta del Lagarto and the ticket office sits at the Puerta del Principe. The tower has its own access control at the foot, so have the ticket ready again there. The time printed on it is your admission time, not a slot: once you are inside there is no limit beyond closing.

The ascent is 35 ramps turning around the hollow core, gentle enough that people who avoid tower climbs generally manage this one, and unshaded and unventilated apart from the window openings. Those openings are the reward on the way up, each one framing a different slice of roof and street, and they double as the places to stand aside and let faster people past. The last short section into the bell chamber is the only part with steps.

Up top you are in among the bells themselves, on an open gallery that runs right round. It is loud on the hour and it is not large, so the crowd density at 13:00 in June is a real consideration. Coming back down, the route puts you into the Patio de los Naranjos, the courtyard that survives from the mosque. The bronze knockers on its north door, the Puerta del Perdon, are replicas; the originals are on display inside the tower you have just come out of. The shop is in the Lagarto warehouse off the same courtyard.

Tips

• There is no Giralda-only ticket and no queue-skipping trick for the tower: everyone comes in on the combined cathedral ticket, 13 euros online or 14 at the office. Booking online also decides which door you use, the Puerta del Lagarto rather than the ticket office at the Puerta del Principe.

• Watch the tower closing time rather than the building’s. Access and the Giralda stop at 17:00 for most of the year, 18:00 during summer time, and 18:00 on July and August Sundays.

• In July and August the doors open at 09:30 on weekdays and Saturdays instead of 11:00. That first hour and a half is the coolest you will get inside a brick chimney in a Seville summer, and it is the single best reason to set an alarm here.

• The free Sunday window, 16:30 to 18:00 outside holidays, needs an online reservation and fills quickly. Booking a normal ticket for a weekday is often less effort than chasing it.

• Bring water and nothing else edible. Eating and drinking anything but water is banned across the whole site, as is smoking.

• Photography is fine without flash and without a tripod, provided you are not disturbing anyone at prayer. Phones should be silenced and hats come off at the door.

• The ramps are the only way up and there is no lift, so the tower is out for anyone who cannot do a long gradual climb. The cathedral floor and the courtyard are a different matter and are level throughout.

• Reduced and free entry both need paperwork. A student card, pension document or disability certificate has to be shown as an official document, not described.

• Tourist visits stop during liturgical acts, and the published timetable can change for worship or cultural events without notice. If your trip depends on the climb, check the agenda the morning of your visit.

• The app audio guide at 4 euros is a euro cheaper than the handset but wants your own headphones and your own battery, and you will be holding your phone for 75 minutes anyway.

• Getting there without a car is easy. The Metrocentro tram stops at Archivo de Indias, Metro line 1 at Puerta de Jerez, and Tussam buses C1, C2, C3, C4, 5, 41 and 42 at Jardines del Cristina. Nearby public car parks include Jardines de Murillo, Puerta de Jerez, Mercado del Arenal and Plaza Nueva.

• Pair it with the Reales Alcazares across the square, the other half of the 1987 UNESCO listing, and book that separately and in advance. The rest of the centre is covered in the Seville guide.