Torre de Banos o Casasola, Estepona

This place is truly unique, great host and priceless vibes!

The oldest, and the most easterly, of the Torres Vigia - the Watchtowers - of Estepona. It is called the Torre de Casasola or also the Torre de Baños - baths. How weird! I wouldn't have thought that it meant seabathing, but who knows. Ah! Hang on . . . there used to be some Roman Baths near here, that's the explanation! Built in the 13th century, with subsequent amendments, it is cylindrical, looking almost like a factory chimney. The bottom 7 metres is solid, that is completely filled with stones and rocks, not hollow. Above this massive base, able to resist attack, there are 2 stories from which the guards could look out along the coast, after having climbed up via a rope ladder or wooden steps. Built by the Moors during their 700 year stay in this part of Spain, it is nowadays completely surrounded by modern buildings, and is, in fact, actually in someone's garden, well, actually I think that it's a hotel garden. You can, however, see it and get close up by walking along the beach. It is the oldest of the 7 Watchtowers in Estepona, and the only one of those that was built by the Moors. Estepona is far and away the town with the largest number of watchtowers remaining.

The best site i ever seen.

Cycling MTB.Torre de Baños.Historical Heritage. It is located in the point of the same name, in the municipality of Estepona, with the limit of Marbella to the right of the mouth of the Guadalmina river in the sea. It is a Muslim work, as it is included in the list of castles and towers on the coast of Granada that, after the conquest, was made during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. It is inferred that from this tower the Islamists exercised surveillance over the western part of the maritime space of Marbella and it was, therefore, an essential part of their defensive device. Its slender proportion and cylindrical plant with a chamfered back make it unique, as well as its small surface area, about 5 m. in diameter and its elevation of about 15 would make it oscillate with the wind, something that was later corrected by adding a ravelin or reinforcement in the shape of a truncated pyramid to its base. It prides itself on being the most slender beacon on the entire Andalusian coast, as it is fifteen meters high. The tower built in red masonry, placed in horizontal rows where no brick is used, the plastering seems to date from the early s. XVI. Inside it has two floors, on the second one one of the stone corbels of the machicolation is preserved. On this floor rises the terrace, in ruins, capable of holding a small cannon. In 1565 the following works were carried out: flooring, terrace floor, exterior plastering and construction of the ravelin, with which it was intended to avoid its vibration☀️⚓️

On both sides of the tower are modern hotels with well-kept gardens, which seem somewhat out of place in the context of the place. Two old shabby buildings and a garden in the immediate vicinity of the tower full of strange artefacts such as an old sofa, a tread stretched over the entire garden, or a fence made from an old door fit the color of the place much more to me, the whole seems somewhat surreal. From the beach, a nice view towards the west and the mountains.