Santa Catalina Castle

The castle of Santa Catalina stands 24 metres above sea level on the hill of the same name, beside the sea in the town of Tarifa. This strategic location has housed various defensive buildings at different times. In the nineteenth century, an artillery fort stood here, and in World War II it was well-protected with several machine gun nests and bunkers. On the hill, there was once a hermitage, which was drawn in the sixteenth century by Van der Wyngaerde. The castle of Santa Catalina that stands today is a Renaissance chateau-style castle that was built in 1929. Until recently, it housed a meteorological observatory under the National Institute of Meteorology, and the southernmost weather station in Europe.