Torres de Serranos and Torres de Quart: Valencia's medieval gates
Valencia: historical city tour
Are the Torres de Serranos worth visiting in Valencia?
Yes. The two surviving medieval gates of Valencia's 14th-century walls offer the best rooftop views of the old city beyond the Miguelete. Entry is €2 each (free on Sundays). The Torres de Serranos is the larger and more impressive; both can be visited in under two hours.
Valencia’s 14th-century city walls were demolished in 1865 to allow the city to expand, but two of the original 12 gates survived: the Torres de Serranos in the north and the Torres de Quart in the west. Both are in excellent condition, both offer rooftop views across the old city, and both charge €2 entry (free on Sundays). Together they can be visited in a single relaxed morning that also takes in the adjacent El Carmen neighbourhood.
Torres de Serranos
The Torres de Serranos, built between 1392 and 1398 by Pere Balaguer, is the northern gate of the old city walls. Two octagonal towers of light-coloured limestone rise 26 metres above the original gate arch, connected by a battlemented wall. The gate faces north across a small square (Plaza de los Fueros) and the old Turia riverbed — now the northern section of Turia Gardens.
Inside the towers: The gate is hollow — the interior is a single large ceremonial space that served as the public entrance to the medieval city for important visitors, ambassadors, and royal processions. The rooms are bare of furnishings and decoration but structurally impressive: Gothic vaulting, deep-set windows, and stone floors polished smooth by centuries of use.
The roof: The towers are accessible by staircase to the battlemented rooftop walk. The view from here takes in the Turia Gardens to the north (where the riverbed is now a park), the Cathedral Miguelete tower to the southeast, the Fine Arts Museum across the river to the northeast, and the roofscape of the old city in every direction. It is not as high as the Miguelete but it is wider and less crowded.
Historical use: The Torres de Serranos served as the royal prison from the 18th century until 1887. Prisoners were held in the lower rooms of the gate; the prison’s existence is documented by carved graffiti on the interior stone walls, some dating from the 18th century and legible today.
The Tribunal de las Aguas connection: Every Thursday at noon, the Tribunal de las Aguas — the world’s oldest functioning court, which adjudicates irrigation water disputes in the Valencia huerta — meets at the Apostles door of the Cathedral. Its origin traces to the Moorish water management systems that predated the current city walls. The Torres de Serranos was the gate through which the Moorish population of the city historically passed; the juxtaposition of these two medieval survival institutions — the gate and the court — is one of the stranger continuities in Valencia’s urban history.
Torres de Quart
The Torres de Quart (also called Torres de Cuarte in Castilian) are the western gate, built between 1441 and 1460. They are round rather than octagonal, heavier in proportion than the Serranos, and show a different architectural temperament — more fortress, less ceremonial. The towers were inspired by the Castel Nuovo in Naples, reflecting Valencia’s political connections with the Aragonese Kingdom of Naples in the 15th century.
Visible bombardment damage: The exterior walls of the Torres de Quart carry clearly visible damage from artillery impacts — not from the medieval period but from the 1808 Napoleonic siege and from the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The holes from cannonballs and shells are deliberately left unrepaired as historical testimony. This is one of the most visible examples of 20th-century conflict archaeology in Valencia.
Views: The rooftop walk at Torres de Quart looks west toward the Barrio del Carmen and the IVAM building, and south toward the modern city. Less dramatic than the Serranos view but worthwhile in its own right.
Lower-level access: The interior rooms of the Quart towers are more developed than the Serranos — there are small interpretation panels covering the history of the walls and the gate’s various historical uses, including its role during the Napoleonic occupation.
Practical information
Torres de Serranos opening hours (2026):
- Tuesday–Saturday: 09:30–19:00
- Sunday and public holidays: 09:30–15:00
- Closed Mondays
Torres de Quart opening hours (2026):
- Tuesday–Saturday: 09:30–19:00
- Sunday and public holidays: 09:30–15:00
- Closed Mondays
Ticket prices (both):
- Adults: €2 each
- Reduced: €1 each
- Under 12: free
- Sundays: free for all
Combined visit: Both towers can be visited for €4 per adult. The walk between them along the southern edge of El Carmen takes 15–20 minutes — you pass through streets with the best street art in the neighbourhood.
How to visit both in a morning
A practical half-day walks you through the best of medieval Valencia:
- Torres de Serranos (30 minutes): arrive at 10:00, climb to the roof, look east toward the Cathedral and south over the old city.
- Walk south through El Carmen (20 minutes on foot): Calle de la Beneficència and Calle dels Cavallers pass through the heart of the medieval neighbourhood, with Roman and Islamic remains visible in the street plan.
- Torres de Quart (30 minutes): arrive at the western gate, inspect the shell damage, climb to the roof.
- Coffee in El Carmen (15 minutes): café tables in Plaza del Tossal, 200 m east of the Quart towers.
From Torres de Quart, the IVAM is a 5-minute walk north. The Central Market and Lonja de la Seda are 15 minutes south and southeast.
historical walking tour in El Carmen neighbourhoodCheck availability
The medieval walls: what was lost
The demolition of the city walls in 1865 was a decision made by the Valencia city council to enable urban expansion — the same logic that eliminated the walls of hundreds of European cities in the 19th century. The 12 original gates were torn down, the walls themselves levelled, and the stone reused in construction elsewhere. The two surviving towers were spared by a city council vote that came down to a margin of one.
The moat that surrounded the walls was partially converted into a boulevard (today’s Gran Vía de Ramón y Cajal) and partially built over. The line of the old walls is still traceable in the street pattern — the diagonal line from the Torres de Serranos to the Torres de Quart corresponds roughly to the circuit of the medieval wall.
For historical walking tours that cover the medieval city in depth, including the wall circuit and the towers:
historical city tourCheck availability
The El Carmen guide covers the neighbourhood between the two surviving towers in detail, including the best street art and the archaeological sites with Roman and Moorish remains visible through pavement glazing.
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