Torre del Oro

This guide to the Torre del Oro in Seville opens with a riddle: what could stop a war fleet from reaching the city, and the answer the Almohad rulers built around 1220, a chain stretched to a twin tower across the river. It follows the tower's golden glow, long rumored to be treasure or gilding, and the ships that later anchored beneath its walls unloading silver and gold from the Americas for the crown's trading house nearby. Stand at the riverbank where guards and clerks once worked the quinto real, the crown's cut of everything that came off the boats.