Things to Do in Melilla, Spain: Walking Guide
Things to Do in Melilla: What to See in the Spanish City
Melilla is a Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast, bordered by Morocco and shaped by Spanish, Riffian Berber, Jewish and Hindu influences. The best things to do in Melilla include exploring its fortified old town, discovering Modernist architecture and visiting monuments that reflect the city’s military, religious and multicultural history. Neywo offers a free audio guide for Melilla with 51 narrated places.
What to See in Melilla
Melilla la Vieja and its fortified enclosures
Melilla la Vieja is the city’s walled citadel and one of its most important monuments. Its fortifications stretch for approximately two thousand metres, making them one of the largest complexes of their kind in Spain. The walls stand on the site of an older Phoenician-Punic fortification, connecting the visible stronghold with a much older history of occupation.
The citadel includes several fortified enclosures, bastions and gates. Plaza de Armas occupies almost the whole of the Second Fortified Enclosure and is laid out as a stepped square. At the northwestern angle of the citadel, Baluarte de la Concepción forms part of Melilla’s protected historic and artistic ensemble.
The Museo Histórico Militar de Melilla is housed in Baluarte de la Concepción Alta, within the First Fortified Enclosure. Managed by the Spanish Army, the museum presents Melilla’s military history and its role as a strategic Spanish enclave in North Africa. From the building, views extend across the old town, the modern city, the Mediterranean coastline and the surrounding North African landscape.
Hospital del Rey, in Plaza de la Parada, houses the Historical Archive of Melilla and preserves part of the city’s documentary heritage. Nearby, the Museo Ibáñez de Melilla—identified in the references as the Museo Casa del Reloj—occupies Torre de la Vela, a historic fortified tower also known as the Casa del Reloj.
Conventico Caves and the Church of the Immaculate Conception
The Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception, also called the Church of the PurÃsima Concepción, is the oldest church in Melilla. It stands inside Melilla la Vieja and contains the image of Our Lady of Victory, Nuestra Señora de la Victoria, the city’s patron saint. The church is also known as the Royal and Pontifical Church of the Immaculate Conception.
The nearby Museum of Sacred Art is housed in a former Franciscan convent in the first fortified area. Its collection preserves Christian religious heritage from parishes, brotherhoods, congregations and private donations. From the museum, visitors can enter the Conventico Caves, an underground network with both natural and human origins. Water erosion helped shape the caves in the former Cala de Trápana, while people excavated and adapted them over the centuries.
The outer forts
Melilla’s defensive history also extends beyond the citadel. Fuerte de Camellos is one of the city’s outer forts and stands on Cerro de Camellos. It is officially listed as a site of cultural interest. Fuerte de MarÃa Cristina is another exterior fort, located on Monte MarÃa Cristina.
Further away from the old town, Fort of Rostrogordo is a distinctive historic fort in Melilla. Together, these sites show how the city’s defensive system extended across more than the walls of Melilla la Vieja.
Modernist Melilla
The Ensanche Modernista provides a different perspective on the city. It is included within Melilla’s Historic and Artistic Ensemble, recognised as an Asset of Cultural Interest, and combines decorative architecture with important religious and civic buildings.
The Central Mosque of Melilla, or Mezquita Central, is the city’s main mosque. It stands on GarcÃa Cabrelles Street in the Ensanche Modernista and is an important landmark in Melilla’s religious and urban landscape.
The Bullring of Melilla, also known as the Mosque of Bullfighting, has a distinctive name and a Neo-Baroque design. Its location in the Modernist Ensanche makes it part of the architectural fabric of this protected area.
The Teatro Kursaal—officially the Teatro Kursaal-Fernando Arrabal and also known as the Cine Teatro Nacional or Gran Teatro Kursaal—is regarded as Melilla’s most important theatre. It stands on Avenida Cándido Lobera.
BasÃlica del Cristo Rey
The BasÃlica del Cristo Rey, also known as the Cristo Rey Chapel of the Pagés Military Hospital, is a protected cultural landmark in the Ensanche Modernista. It belongs to the former Pagés Military Hospital complex and was built between 1939 and 1941 by the military engineer Luis Siera Miralles.
The chapel is identified as the hospital’s eighth pavilion and stands beside the wall separating the hospital from Zoco Street. Its setting connects religious architecture with Melilla’s military and institutional history.
Museums beyond the old town
The Museo del Automóvil de Melilla explores the history of motoring through automobiles, motorcycles and other objects linked to the twentieth-century automobile. The collection was housed in a refurbished industrial building identified as a former factory for candles, bleach and soap, giving the museum an industrial setting of its own.
Explore Melilla with Neywo
Neywo has a free audio guide for Melilla with 51 narrated places. The app offers three walking tours and one bus route, with narration available in 11 languages:
- Melilla la Vieja: Four Walls Against the Sea — a 1.29 km walk lasting 81 minutes, with 12 narrated stops.
- Modernist Melilla: Mosques, Synagogue and a Bullring in Africa — a 3.43 km walk lasting 119 minutes, with 12 narrated stops.
- Bastions and Gates of the Citadel — a 0.99 km walk lasting 52 minutes, with 7 narrated stops.
- Line 1: Ride Through Modernist Melilla — a 3.9 km bus route lasting 17 minutes, with 7 narrated stops.
Each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Download Neywo and explore Melilla’s citadel, forts, museums and Modernist landmarks while the app tells you the story of each stop.
Melilla is part of Spain, whose cities offer many other layers of history and culture to discover.
Places with an audio guide in Melilla
8 places in Melilla with a Neywo audio guide. Each one starts telling its story as you reach it.
Self-guided tours in Melilla
4 tours in Melilla, free in the Neywo app. Each stop tells its story as you reach it.
- Bus ride
Line 1: Ride Through Modernist Melilla
Melilla's city bus line 1, run by the Cooperativa Omnibus de Autobuses, is a cheap way to see the Modernist Extension. Board near the Real market and ride past the Perelló cinema-theatre, the Gaselec electricity museum, the Plaza de España monument, the Heroes of Spain monument and the Comandancia General to the Central Mosque.
Mercado del Real, Melilla · Teatro-Cine Perelló, Melilla · Gaselec Electricity Museum · Monumento a los Héroes y Mártires de las Campañas, Melilla · Monumento al Alzamiento Nacional, Melilla · Edificio de la Comandancia General de Melilla …
Open this tour: Line 1: Ride Through Modernist Melilla - Walk
Melilla la Vieja: Four Walls Against the Sea
Melilla's old citadel rises on a rocky headland where Phoenician and Punic defenders once stood, and its four fortified enclosures climb from the sea to the mainland. Cross gates and bastions, visit the oldest church in the city, the military museum and the lighthouse, and finish at the water's edge with the Mediterranean and North Africa in view.
Fuerte de Victoria Chica · Fuerte de Victoria Grande · Cuarto Recinto Fortificado · Tercer Recinto Fortificado · Plaza de Armas, Melilla · Puerta de Santiago, Melilla …
Open this tour: Melilla la Vieja: Four Walls Against the Sea - Walk
Modernist Melilla: Mosques, Synagogue and a Bullring in Africa
Early twentieth-century Melilla grew into one of the most remarkable modernist cities in Spain. Walk from a neo-Gothic military chapel past a neo-Arab house that shelters a synagogue, two mosques, the Kursaal theatre and Spain's southernmost bullring, ending at an Egyptian museum and the old electricity museum.
Church of the Immaculate Conception · Monumento a los Héroes y Mártires de las Campañas, Melilla · Teatro Kursaal · Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús · Casa de YamÃn Benarroch, Melilla · Central Mosque of Melilla …
Open this tour: Modernist Melilla: Mosques, Synagogue and a Bullring in Africa - Walk
Bastions and Gates of the Citadel
Trace the second and third enclosures of Melilla la Vieja bastion by bastion. See San Jose, San Fernando and San Pedro on the walls, the Five Words bastion that keeps the memory of an Islamic gate, the Conception bastion that now holds the military museum, and the small fort of El Rosario.
Baluarte de San José Bajo · Baluarte de San Fernando · Segundo Recinto Fortificado · Baluarte de San Pedro, Melilla · Baluarte de las Cinco Palabras o torre de Alafia, Melilla · Baluarte de la Concepción …
Open this tour: Bastions and Gates of the Citadel
Walk Melilla with Neywo
Neywo turns Melilla into a self-guided audio tour. Stories arrive as you reach the place they belong to, and the route reshapes when you wander off it.
