Torre del Oro

The Torre del Oro, the Tower of Gold, has watched over the Guadalquivir in Seville for eight centuries. Its lowest and largest stage is Almohad work: a twelve-sided tower built in 1220–1221 on the orders of the governor of Seville, as the end point of a fortified wall running from the Alcázar down to the river, past the octagonal Torre de la Plata that still survives nearby. Its purpose was to control the river approach to the city.

The tower grew in layers, and it is easy to read them from the riverbank. Above the Almohad drum sits a narrower twelve-sided stage generally attributed to the time of Peter I of Castile in the 14th century; on top is a small cylindrical lantern with a dome of golden tiles, added in 1760 by the military engineer Sebastian van der Borcht, architect of the Royal Tobacco Factory, after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 had badly damaged the upper part. At that time the city's authorities even proposed demolishing it, and it was the people of Seville who defended it. In all it rises about 36 metres.

The name has attracted many explanations. Legends speak of treasure hidden by Peter I, of glazed tiles glittering in the sun, or of gold brought back from the Americas; the restoration of 2005 suggested a more modest answer, a coating of lime mortar and pressed straw that gave the walls a golden sheen. During the Castilian conquest of Seville in 1248 the fleet of Admiral Ramón de Bonifaz sailed past the tower to break the pontoon bridge linking the city with Triana, an episode still shown on the coats of arms of several towns in Cantabria.

Since 1944 the tower has housed a small maritime museum run by the Spanish Navy, with nautical instruments, models and charts that tie Seville to the river and to its age as the port of the Indies. Come at sunset, when the stone does live up to its name.

Getting there

The tower stands on the east bank of the Guadalquivir in the Arenal district of central Seville, close to the Maestranza bullring and facing the Triana quarter across the river; it is about 2 km from the point we use for the city centre. Seville Airport (SVQ) is about 10 km away.