WALKS IN HISTORY: La Torre de la Merced.

            Whenever a roteño thinks of his hometown, one of the images that invariably springs into his mind is that of the elegant Torre de la Merced. It is to Rota what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris or the Torre de Belém is to Lisbon. An unrepeatable monument which wispers into the wind of a bygone golden era.
 

            The tower itself was the campanile of a convent that dominated the east of Rota from the early 17th century until 1835. This convent has all but dissapeared today -where it not for the surviving bell tower- but in it's heyday it funcioned as a hospital, a school, a social centre and even as a novitiate for students of theology. The original bell tower was struck down by a hurricane in 1722, but it was quickly rebuilt along those elegant lines that today crown the Rota skyline.
          

            Architecturally speaking, it has a squared ground plan in the first two floors and is built in whitewashed brick and limestone, on the north face there is a plaque remembering the hurricane and the coat of arms of the Mercedarian Order which built it. The third floor is also squared, built in limestone with arches for the bells and copies the design of other bell towers in Andalusia, such as the campaniles of the Granada and Guadix cathedrals. But it is the top floor which stands out and makes anyone that sees the Tower imprint its' image in their minds. The square becomes an octogon with openings for the bells in all eight sides and is then is topped by a dome covered with white and blue azulejos that seems to converse with the golden azulejo dome of Cádiz cathedral across the Bay. The building is then topped by the cross of the old chapel of San Cayetano.
 

          Today you can visit the inside of the tower, although sadly the upper floors are closed to visitors, where the association “Foro Plural Torre de la Merced” hosts all types of cultural events such as lectures or -in the coming Christmas time- a belén; that is: a nativity scene.

           In the introduction I commented how the Tower is in the conscious collective of most roteños, well this is so true that when Rota built its' “house” in the popular pilgrimage town of El Rocío... guess how they crowned the building. Exactly, with a replica of our beautiful Torre de la Merced.

(Publicado en el periódico Rota Coastline el 5 de diciembre de 2013)