Logbook · 11 places

Castle of San Marcos

El Puerto de Santa María, Bahía de Cádiz, Cádiz

1 Villages · 5 Monuments · 1 Curiosities · 3 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

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Castle of San Marcos

Monument · El Puerto de Santa María, Bahía de Cádiz, Cádiz

A church and fortress built around 1264 on the foundations of a former mosque, by order of Alfonso X the Wise after the conquest of the city, in honour of the Virgin and for its conversion to Christian worship; he reinforced its foundations with remains from a nearby Roman building and equipped it with four towers, two hexagonal and two quadrangular, whose ground floor served as the main chapel to the Virgen de los Milagros. The qibla wall, where the mihrab stood, and Almohad features in its construction are still preserved. It later served as a defence against new North African invasions and belonged to the House of Medinaceli from 1306. Declared a historic-artistic monument in 1920, it was closed from 1868 until its restoration around the 1940s.

hacia 1264

Photo: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in El Puerto de Santa María