Rising high and mighty above Artà, this walled fortress was built atop an earlier Moorish enclave and encloses a small church. The 4000-sq-metre complex, extensively restored in the 1960s, reveals all the hallmarks of a medieval bastion, down to the stone turrets ringing the top and the metre-thick walls. The views from here sweep over the rooftops of the medina-like old town and beyond to the bald, bumpy peaks of the Serra de Llevant.
The walls were built in the 14th century to protect the town from pirates or invaders. Now you'll find walkways, a basic cafeteria and a simple, salmon-coloured neoclassical church (built in 1832 after the modest chapel that predated it was purposely burnt to the ground following a cholera epidemic).
From the Transfiguració del Senyor parish church, 180 steps lead up to the santuari along the grand, cypress-lined Via Crucis (Way of the Cross).
