Parque de María Luisa

The Parque de María Luisa is the green heart of Seville and one of the loveliest city parks in Spain. Its gardens once belonged to the Palace of San Telmo, and in 1893 the Infanta María Luisa Fernanda de Borbón, Duchess of Montpensier, donated them to the city. In the years before the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, the French landscape designer Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, curator of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, redesigned them as a romantic park, drawing his inspiration from the Generalife in Granada, the Alhambra and the gardens of the Alcázar of Seville. The result is a series of shady avenues, glorietas and small plazas, each with tiled benches, fountains and pergolas, many of them dedicated to writers and artists, under a canopy of palms, orange trees, pines and huge exotic trees that give deep shade in summer. Water is everywhere: Moorish-style fountains and rills, ponds with ducks and swans, the Isleta de los Patos, the island of the ducks, with its little pavilion, and the Monte Gurugú, an artificial hill with a waterfall that children love to climb. The Glorieta de Bécquer, dedicated to the Romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, with its sculpture of three women representing the phases of love beneath a huge cypress, is one of the most romantic corners in the city. The park was also the setting for the 1929 Exposition, and its two great squares, the Plaza de España and the Plaza de América, were built for it. The Plaza de América, at the southern end, is framed by three pavilions in different historical styles, Mudéjar, Gothic and Renaissance, and is famous for its white doves, which flock to anyone with a handful of seeds. The Mudéjar pavilion houses the Museum of Popular Arts and Customs, with costumes, ceramics and crafts of Andalusian life.

How to enjoy it: the park is free and open from early in the morning until late in the evening, with longer hours in summer. Like other city parks, it can close temporarily during weather warnings for strong winds, so check if the weather is wild. The most relaxing way to see it is simply to wander, but you can also rent a bicycle or one of the four-wheeled pedal carts that families pedal around the paths, or take a horse-drawn carriage from the edge of the park, which is a classic, if touristy, Seville experience. On the third Sunday of most months, except in high summer, a craft market sets up in the park, and on any day the Plaza de América doves and the ducks of the Isleta are a guaranteed hit with children.

What to see: start at the Plaza de España, cross into the park by one of its side avenues, and make your way south through the glorietas to the Monte Gurugú and the Isleta de los Patos, then on to the Plaza de América. The Museum of Popular Arts and Customs, in the Mudéjar pavilion, is a low-cost visit that gives a good sense of traditional Andalusian life, from Feria dresses to farm tools. The Archaeological Museum, in the Renaissance pavilion opposite, holds many of the finest finds from Itálica but has been undergoing a long renovation, so check whether it has reopened before planning around it.

When to go: early morning, when locals jog and walk their dogs and the light is soft, or late afternoon and evening, when the park fills with families. In the heat of a summer afternoon the deep shade makes it one of the few comfortable places outdoors in the city. The park sits between the old town and the river, next to the Plaza de España and a short walk from the Seville Aquarium, the Hotel Alfonso XIII and the university in the old Royal Tobacco Factory, the setting of Carmen. Combine it with the Plaza de España and a river cruise from the Torre del Oro, or end the day with tapas on the far side of the river in Triana.