Twixt the deep blue sea & the not so dps

As far South as you can get on the Spanish mainland. On the left is the Atlantic and on the right the Med.
In the distance, on a site identified in 1567 by Anton Van der Wyngaerde (a prolific Flemish topographical artist) as ‘Santa Catalina y de San Telmo’, is the Castillo Santa Catalina which is not actually a castle but an signalling station for semaphore or optical telegraph (flag waving) to communicate with shipping.
Julio Murúa designed an Italian Renaissance structure with a defensive appearance in harmony with the real castles on the Isla de los Palomas and the Castillo de Guzman El Bueno. In 1931 the committee men of the Ministerio de Marina agreed to build a strangely out-of-proportion tower with mudejar arches and balconies on the corners.
At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the Republicans caused so much damage by bombing that it remained abandoned forty years.
A project to create a visitor and exhibition centre was started in 2006, but being such an historic site, work was soon stopped by court order.Read more