Travel

November in Seville: new wine from the Aljarafe, and the olive harvest in full

Twenty degrees, no crowds, the European film festival from 6–14 November, and mosto that exists for six weeks a year. Verified dates and real AEMET numbers.

By The Guide to Andalucía teamPublished 20 Oct 20267 min read

The Giralda tower and Seville Cathedral rising above the city rooftops at sunset
Photo: Henrique Ferreira / Unsplash

Seville in November is twenty degrees, empty of crowds, and busier than it looks. The city runs its European film festival in the first half of the month, and the province around it does something no other month allows: it pours mosto, the year’s new wine, while the table-olive harvest that made Seville the olive capital of the world is still coming in.

It is also the month the light moves. The clocks went back on 25 October, and across November Seville’s sunrise slips from 07:49 to 08:18 — twenty-nine minutes later — while sunset only loses nineteen. If you came in October expecting the evenings to disappear, November reverses it. The mornings go instead.

What the weather actually does

Seville airport averages 20.2°C by day and 10.0°C at night in November, with 91mm of rain across 6.4 rain days and no frost at all. Those are AEMET’s 1981–2010 normals.

Twenty by day is the useful number. It is the warmest Seville gets between November and March, and it is the temperature the city was built for — the Alcázar gardens and the Barrio Santa Cruz are genuinely pleasant rather than survivable. The ten-degree night is the trade: this is the first month you need a jacket after dark, and the inland basin cools faster than the coast does.

The rain is up from October’s 68mm to 91mm but spread across slightly more days, so it behaves better than October’s does. The caveat is the tail: 109mm fell in a single day in November 1997, a month that delivered 21 rain days here — and 21 at Córdoba, Granada and Jaén as well. A wet November is a regional event. At the other end, November 1981 produced 0.4mm. The average describes almost no actual November.

Which week to book

The second week. The film festival is running, the olive harvest is at full tilt in the Aljarafe, and you are clear of both the All Saints long weekend and the election.

Two dates to steer around. Saturday 31 October to Monday 2 November is a three-day weekend nationally — All Saints falls on a Sunday in 2026, so the holiday shifts to the Monday — and Seville fills with Spanish visitors. And Sunday 29 November is the general election, with the campaign running 13–27 November: schools and sports halls become polling stations, hotel rooms tighten during the campaign, and the city’s event calendar thins out in that last week.

What is on in November 2026

  • 6–14 November (confirmed) — the 23rd Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla. Nine days, venues across the city, and the headline cultural event of Seville’s year outside Semana Santa and the feria.
  • 13 November (confirmed) — local holiday in San Nicolás del Puerto, up in the Sierra Norte.
  • 23 November (fixed every year) — the Fiesta de San Clemente in the Cathedral, marking the Christian conquest of the city in 1248. Mass, choral office, and a procession with the relic of St Clement and the sword of San Fernando, attended by the Cathedral Chapter and the city corporation. In 2026 the 23rd is already a Monday, so no date shift.
  • Sunday 29 November (confirmed) — Spanish general election. Not an attraction, but it will shape that weekend.
  • Early to mid November (expected) — Umbrete’s Fiesta del Mosto y de la Aceituna Fina del Aljarafe, with the FICTUM trade fair alongside it. The 36th edition’s trade fair ran 6–9 November 2025 and the pattern is the first or second weekend. Umbrete had not published 2026 dates when this was written.
  • Last weekend of November (expected) — the Christmas lights switch-on on Avenida de la Constitución, Tetuán, Salvador and Asunción. The 2025 switch-on was on 28 or 29 November depending on which official source you read, which is a good reason not to promise a 2026 date.
  • From 1 and 15 November (confirmed) — the hunting calendar opens up: woodcock from the 1st, thrushes and Doñana-fringe waterfowl from the 15th, big game daily until February. Relevant if you are walking in the Sierra Norte or the campiña.

What to ignore

The Medio Maratón de Sevilla is not a November race in 2026, whatever you read. The city’s own race calendar announced in February that it was moving to the last Sunday of November, and most secondary listings still carry 29 November. The organisers then moved it again, to Sunday 13 December, because of the general election. To make it worse, the edition held in 2026 ran on 25 January, so “Seville half marathon 2026” has been published as three different dates. If you are running it, check the organiser’s site and nothing else.

What life is like

Seville province is the table-olive capital of the world, and November is the back end of the picking. The 2026/27 forecast puts the province at 320,000 tonnes of table olives — roughly two-thirds of the entire Andalusian crop — in a mix that is about 60% hojiblanca, 31% manzanilla and 5% gordal, plus 142,000 tonnes of olive oil. In the Aljarafe and the Campiña, November smells of brine and crushed olive, and the day-labour economy is the loudest thing in the villages.

The other November product is mosto. This is new wine, barely fermented, sold by the jug out of Aljarafe bodegas, and it exists for about four to six weeks before it becomes something else. Umbrete’s fiesta is built on it and pairs it with the Aljarafe’s fine olives, which is a fair summary of what the province is for.

Out on the marshes, the rice harvest at Isla Mayor and the cotton pick are finishing, and the Guadalquivir wetlands start filling with wintering waterfowl. In the city the orange trees turn and nothing much closes. Seville in November is a working city at twenty degrees, which is an underrated thing to visit.

City or province

Both, and November is one of the few months when the province repays the effort as much as the city. In July nobody sane leaves the shade; in April everything is Semana Santa and the feria. In November the Aljarafe is pressing and picking, the Sierra Norte is walkable, and the day trips are comfortable rather than punishing. The city holds up too — this is the month to do the Alcázar and the Cathedral without queueing in forty degrees, and to find a table in Triana at nine without planning ahead.

The one thing to do in November

Drink mosto in the Aljarafe. It is the single most November thing in the province, because it is physically impossible at any other time: the wine is weeks old, unfiltered, barely stable, and gone by Christmas. The one weekend a year the province organises itself around it is Umbrete’s, in the first half of the month.

What makes it worth the trip rather than a curiosity is the pairing. The manzanilla and gordal olives on the table come from the harvest happening in the fields outside that same week. It is the only moment in the Sevillian year when both of the province’s signature crops are at hour zero, within a few kilometres of each other. The film festival is the better headline if you are staying in the city. The mosto is the better argument for November specifically.

Common questions

Is November a good time to visit Seville?

It is one of the best. Twenty degrees by day, no heat, no queues, the European film festival, and hotel prices well below spring. The compromise is ten-degree nights and a real chance of rain on six days of the month.

Do I need to worry about the election?

Only for the final week. The campaign runs 13–27 November and polling is Sunday the 29th. Expect polling stations in schools and sports halls, some rooms taken up during the campaign, and few municipal events in that last stretch.

What is open on the All Saints holiday?

The holiday is Monday 2 November, not Sunday the 1st. Shops, offices and many municipal museums close on the Monday. Cemeteries are the busy place on both days — the visit to family graves is the backbone of the weekend.

Where to go next

Sources

Weather: AEMET, Valores climatológicos normales 1981–2010, Sevilla Aeropuerto; extremes from AEMET’s Valores extremos series. Film festival: Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla. San Clemente: Catedral de Sevilla. Umbrete and FICTUM: Ayuntamiento de Umbrete and Diputación de Sevilla. Christmas lights: Visita Sevilla official Navidad guide. Harvest forecast: Junta de Andalucía 2026/27 aforo. Hunting periods: Resolución de 1 de junio de 2026, BOJA no. 108. Local holidays: BOJA no. 197. Election calendar: Real Decreto 806/2026 and the Junta Electoral Central. Half marathon: the organiser’s own site.

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