Los Remedios - Estepona parish church

Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios © Gonzalo Alvarez
Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios

Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios

The church of Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios is close by in the Plaza San Francisco. It was built in the 18th Century of local sandstone, which is rich in iron ore. As you walk around the outside walls, you will see many pieces of iron ore still embedded in the stone blocks.

For more than forty years during the middle of the 18th century, it was a Franciscan monastery - the hermitage of Vera Cruz. Later it became for a time the hospice of La Purisma. The monestary stood where the square now is. The monestary chapel became the parish church when the one in Plaza del Reloj was destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

The main door of the church, indeed the church as a whole, is an odd mixture of American colonial architecture and rococo, and in the entrance archway stands a statue of the Virgin Mary with a relief showing the sun, moon and stars. The effect is curious and not entirely satisfying, although this is undoubtedly an impressive building in many ways. This is unusual when the churches of the era were generally Baroque. The reason is explained by the funding from Estepona emigrants returning with wealth from the Americas.

Location

Plaza San Francisco

Destinations