Church in Ubeda
Also known as Iglesia de San Lorenzo
Paid entryThere is an entry charge.
One of Ubeda’s most unusual monuments, the Church of San Lorenzo is a 13th-century church-fortress built straight onto the old Almohad city wall, so its wall walkway, the Mirador de San Lorenzo, doubles as a balcony over the olive groves of the Guadalquivir valley. One of Ubeda’s first eleven parishes after the 1233 reconquest, it layers Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque work, with a 16th-century remodel in the manner of Andres de Vandelvira. After years on the endangered-heritage list it was handed to the Fundacion Huerta de san Antonio in 2013 and is being turned into a cultural center for concerts and exhibitions.
For budget travelers, the church now charges a small admission fee since its rehabilitation, so it is no longer a free walk-in. The view from the Mirador de San Lorenzo terrace on the wall, though, costs nothing and is one of the best free panoramas in town, best at sunset. The free heart of Ubeda is right there too: the Plaza Vazquez de Molina, the Sacra Capilla del Salvador facade, and the free-to-enter Church of San Pablo are all a short walk away.
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Other places worth the walk, and what each one costs.
Gothic and Renaissance collegiate church raised over Ubeda's former main mosque, anchoring one end of the Plaza Vazquez de Molina alongside the Sacra Capilla del Salvador and the Palace of Dean Ortega. The interior and cloister charge a small entry fee, but the square outside and the church facade cost nothing to admire.
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 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.
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