Arco de la Estrella gateway

The Arco de la Estrella links Plaza Mayor with the Santa María area, but it is not a medieval gateway preserved unchanged. Manuel de Larra Churriguera built it in the eighteenth century over an earlier fifteenth-century entrance. Its low, angled shape answered a practical need: allowing carriages to pass more easily. Notice that the opening does not operate as a rigidly perpendicular passage through the walls. That slight turn tells a story of adaptation, when comfortable access became more important than military function. Walk through slowly, leaving room for other people, and look back towards the square. Within a few steps, urban scale changes from the large commercial space to the streets and representative squares of the monumental enclosure.