• Menu
  • Menu

Alcanada tower

The Main tower or the Alcanada tower is located in Alcudia, between the Port of Alcudia and the Alcanada residential development. The Main tower is situated at around 18 meters above sea level and it is 14 meters high. The Main tower is owned by the municipality of Alcudia and is in good condition.

The name, of the Main tower, comes because the tower is located in the old Puerto Mayor (the Main port). The Main tower was built at the end of the 16th century under the orders of King Philip III of Spain to complete the defence of the city of Alcudia. The mathematician Joan Binimelis devised a system of watchtowers along the Balearic coast with a code of signals that warned about the approach of pirate ships. Using smoke signals by day and fires by night to warn the locals to prepare their defense, the guards would light fires on the terraces of the towers. It is one of the five strategic surveillance points along Alcudia’s coastal zone. From the Main tower to the Penya Roja watchtower barren coastline had to be watched and defended for hundreds of years – mostly beginning in the 16th century, when the Balearics were attacked by Berbers and pirates.