Plaza Alta is the central square in the old town of Algeciras. It’s the town’s central hub for social activity in the evenings.
In the centre of the square is a monumental fountain dating from 1930. It’s decorated with Seville ceramics, including ornamental frogs around the perimeter.
A balustrade runs around the square which is also decorated with ceramic tiles.
As are the benches, although they aren’t quite as old as the fountain.
The Church of Nuestra Señora de la Palma stands on the west side of the square.
In the southeast corner is a small chapel, the Capilla de Europa.
At the end of Calle Alfonos XI, on Avenida Blas Infante, you’ll find the highly uninimpressive Parque Arqueológico de las Murallas Meriníes de Algeciras, the only uncovered archaeological remains in Algeciras.
Remnants of the old city wall, and a surrounding moat (ditch?) can be seen which caused the intended extension of Avenida Blas Infante to the waterfront to be diverted around it.
The walls were built by the Marinids in the 14th century when Algeciras was a Moorish town. They were destroyed during the Castillian reconquest of 1344.
Personally I’d have just bulldozed through it (and that’s coming from the son of an archaeologist) after fully excavating and recording it first of course. Still I guess the local folks feel they need at least some connection with the past as there is precious little else.
I had to search hard for some modern architecture that I liked and eventually found Edificio Kursaal on Avenida Villanueva behind Restaurante El Alkazar which I will review in a coming post.
It’s a Modernist conference centre built quite recently in 2007 I believe and designed by the artist Guillermo Pérez Villalta who is from nearby Tarifa. I understand preparations are under way to use the building to display his work.
The most decorative aspects of the exterior are the wrought iron window grilles.
There are more features inside I’d love to see. The slideshow here shows some of them.
I quite like the Deco style building next to it as well although I don’t know anything about it.
Over the road from El Alkazar is this old veteran which doesn’t seem to be getting much use.
And that’s about it in terms of interesting architecture, although the market building is quite famous as well (see the next post on ‘Villa Vieja – the market and around’).