Walls of La Macarena

The Macarena Walls preserve the only intact stretch of the old Almohad enclosure that protected Seville during the Middle Ages: 180 metres of wall with 12 square towers of rubble stone rising above a Roman base from the 2nd century AD, making this site a palimpsest of more than two thousand years of urban history. The original Almohad wall, built between the 12th and 13th centuries, was over 6 kilometres long with 166 towers and 13 gates controlling access to the Islamic medina. Most of it was demolished in the 19th and 20th centuries to make way for urban expansion. The surviving stretch, next to the Basilica of the Macarena and the monumental Macarena Gate—a superb horseshoe arch from the Almohad period—forms one of the most authentic medieval ensembles in southern Spain.