Church in Ubeda
Also known as Iglesia de Santa Maria de los Reales Alcazares
Paid entryThere is an entry charge.
Gothic and Renaissance collegiate church built over Ubeda’s former main mosque on the Plaza Vazquez de Molina, with a cloister that still holds Moorish-era remains and a famous set of wrought-iron grilles. It sits in the same Renaissance ensemble as the Sacra Capilla del Salvador and the Palace of Dean Ortega.
For budget travelers, the square outside and the church facade cost nothing, so the basilica fits straight onto a free walk through Ubeda’s old centre. Only the interior and cloister charge a small entry fee. Come in spring or autumn for milder weather, because the inland summer in Jaen province gets brutally hot.
Practical
Nearby
Other places worth the walk, and what each one costs.
A Plateresque palace in Ubeda with a grand double-towered facade, one of the most ornate civil frontages in the town's Renaissance old town. The building now houses the local School of Art, and the facade is free to admire from the street. The interior courtyard is often accessible during school hours at no charge.
The Church of San Lorenzo is one of Ubeda's most unusual monuments: a 13th-century church-fortress built straight onto the Almohad city wall, so its south side doubles as a stretch of the old defences and its wall walkway, the adarve, opens out as a balcony over the Guadalquivir valley and the olive groves below.
The Church of San Pablo is one of the oldest churches in Ubeda, with origins reaching back to the Visigothic period and a long history of rebuilding that left it layered in Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance work.
Freestanding Renaissance clock tower on Plaza de Andalucia in Ubeda, marking the boundary between the old and new town. Free to see and a handy orientation point: from here the monumental Renaissance quarter around Plaza Vazquez de Molina is a short walk south, so it costs nothing to use the tower as the spot where a budget walking route through the old
One of the surviving medieval gates in Ubeda's old walls, opening toward the south and the road to Granada. Free to walk up to at any hour, it marks where the city once faced the Reconquista frontier. A quick, no-cost stop on the way to or from the Renaissance core around Plaza Vazquez de Molina.
The Mirador de San Lorenzo is one of the best free views in Ubeda, and it costs nothing because it is simply the old city wall turned into a balcony.
Working out what Ubeda costs?
The whole of Ubeda