Located beside the bay of the same name, the citadel of Roses is an imposing military fortification which contains on its interior a succession of the ancient settlements to which Roses was home in the past.

The fortress –actually a citadel– is a Renaissance work dating from the mid-16th century, which was reformed both for the purpose of extending and reinforcing it in the two subsequent centuries on the orders of King Charles I of Spain. It is a star-shaped pentagonal walled enclosure with triangular bastions reinforced at the points, built using a system of banks, and has two main gateways: the Sea and Land gateways.
The interior contains an outstanding archaeological site, where excavations have revealed the remains of the Greek colony of 'Rhode' (Hellenic defensive wall and residential quarter dating from the 4th-3rd centuries B.C.), a paleo-Christian church and necropolis (4th-7th centuries) relating to a Visigoth settlement, as well as the remains of the Romanesque-Lombard church and monastery of Santa Maria de Roses (11th-13th centuries).