The story of Reales Alcázares

The upper floors of this palace are still used by the Spanish royal family whenever they visit Seville. The Real Alcázar grew on the site of the city's Islamic-era citadel: in 913–914 Abd al-Rahman III built a fortified enclosure, roughly square and about 100 metres long on each side, in place of a Visigothic Christian basilica.

In the 11th century the Abbadid ruler al-Mu'tamid added a new palace called al-Mubarak, "the Blessed", and in 1163 the Almohad caliph Abu Ya'qub Yusuf made the Alcázar his main residence in the region. After the Castilian conquest of 1248, new palaces and gardens progressively replaced the old ones, among them a richly decorated palace built by Pedro I in the 1360s.

The name itself comes from Arabic al-qasr, ultimately from Latin castrum, "fort". Look for the Patio del Yeso, the remains of the old Almohad palace, where wall painting fragments are now exhibited.