Alcanar - Culture

Culture

The Alcanar parish church dedicated to Saint Michael (Sant Miquel in Catalan or San Miguel in Spanish) is a major feature of the municipality. The church is built in the Renaissance style, with a single nave and side chapels; it originally consisted of four bays with a semicircular apse, which disappeared in some nineteenth century rebuilding. It was then expanded with a transept, dome base and a sanctuary. It currently measures 19 metres wide and has a total height of 16 metres. The access door is a half-point arch framed by two columns, and at the top are three niches framed by a triangular pediment. The belltower has a square base and windows on each side.

On the outskirts of the village is a shrine devoted to the Mare de Déu del Remei (Our Lady of Good Remedy). It was built in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth in a Gothic style. In the eighteenth century, a belltower, a crossing and a dome were added and the interior was expanded. Next to the shrine is the building of the former guest house in which retains a mosaic that represents the battle of Lepanto. The mosaic was part of the floor of the chapel until it was removed in the early nineteenth century, and as a result is very deteriorated. The image is venerated at the shrine is a small class of about 60 centimetres of the eighteenth century. The temple interior is decorated with a series of paintings made in 1920. The former altar pieces and part of the decoration were destroyed in 1936.

Along the coast are the defence towers, which were built between 1530 and 1630 to fend off pirates. They are all square, with door with voussoir, floor and vault. Most of them have been renovated, and are now used as houses or summer residences.