Torre del Oro, Military watchtower on Guadalquivir River, Seville, Spain.
The Torre del Oro is a fortified structure on the banks of the Guadalquivir in Seville, Spain, serving as a watchtower and now as a maritime museum. The building shows a twelve-sided stone and brick base that rises through three levels to 36 meters (118 feet) in height.
Construction took place in 1221 under Almohad rule as part of the defenses along the river. The fortification was meant to control ship traffic and protect access to the city.
The name comes from the golden shine the tower cast on the river, due to a covering of lime mortar and pressed hay. Muslim sources called it Bury al-Dahab, Tower of Gold. Since 1944 it has housed a naval museum run by the Navy, with navigational instruments, charts and ship models.
The tower opens Monday through Friday from 9:30 to 18:30 and on weekends from 10:30 to 18:30. Narrow spiral stairs lead to the upper floors, so the climb can be challenging for visitors with limited mobility.
The chain said to have blocked the Guadalquivir at the tower never existed: the 17th-century historian Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga inferred it from old memories, and it is now known with certainty that there was no such chain. The chain in the coats of arms of Avilés, Santander, Laredo, Santoña and Comillas, added to Cantabria's coat of arms in 1984, is the one that held the barges of the pontoon bridge broken by Ramón de Bonifaz in 1248.
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