Thanks in advance for any help! These forums are always so useful to me in planning trips.

My husband and I have been planning a trip across Andalusia next March, culminating in three days in Seville, flying back home the evening of Sunday, March 29--Palm Sunday. We were hoping that would mean we would have time to enjoy Seville's usual tourist attractions (if a little bit more crowded than normal) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning and then admire the processions Sunday afternoon before taking the bus to the Seville airport around 5 pm.

However, I've been looking into Semana Santa more and now I'm concerned that we may be setting ourselves up for failure here--what we don't want are massive crowds that weekend turning all the tourist attractions in the city into gridlock or an absolute inability to navigate the streets all day Sunday. However, when people write about the crowds of Semana Santa, often they're talking about later in the week, closer to Easter, and at night, so I wanted to check--

Anyone who's been to Seville on Palm Sunday, what was your experience? What kind of daytime crowds would we likely face? How crowded would the Friday and Saturday before be (I read there are smaller processions on these days too, but they don't go through the center of the city)? What attractions and/or necessary shops (grocery stores, etc.), if any, tend to close for the holiday? Is public transport an impossibility to navigate those days?

If Seville during Palm Sunday weekend is a bad idea for what we want to get out of the trip, we'd also love advice on what we think are our likely three best alternatives, given flight times and predicted prices--1) reversing our itinerary across Andalusia and flying out of Malaga on Saturday the 28th, evading Semana Santa altogether, or 2) spending Saturday the 28th and Palm Sunday in Cordoba doing the usual tourist things (and seeing some small processions) and flying out of Seville the evening of Sunday the 29th or out of Madrid the morning of Monday the 30th, or 3) going to Madrid on Saturday the 28th and then flying out of Madrid on the morning of Monday the 30th (experiencing a more low-key Palm Sunday in Madrid, where we might hopefully be able to do some tourism as well--our plan otherwise saves Madrid for another trip).

Please tell us your current itinerary, specifying where you will spend your nights.

I visit the region every year for about a month in the early spring and I asked some of your same questions a couple of years ago; I hope the answers I received will help.


https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/semana-santa-in-spain-1718018/. (Oh, never mind, I see this query was about Madrid!!! I'll leave it in case it's of any help!! sorry!!)


I was in Seville for about a week this past March but opted NOT to linger for Semana Santa; one of these days I'll make it.
But for next year I'm thinking, and maybe this would be an idea for you, of spending a few days early in that week in another town where I can view the processions on a smaller scale and avoid the crowds that would be in Sevilla... (Although my hotel in Sevilla this year did their best to convince me to return at that time, as they re right on one of the procession routes....do maybe if you do plan to be in Seville then you could look into a hotel where you could view some of the excitement from the property. I've never been at that time, so I don't know much, but that might be one idea. Or else go to any one of many, many towns in Andalucia where you can partake with perhaps less crowding....