At first glance, the Pla d'Almatà is a vast and desolate wasteland. It covers 27 hectares surrounded by the remains of a wall and 27 very deteriorated towers. From the road, only the Sant Crist de Balaguer fortress, a fire station, and a high school are visible. If you wander around, some clues emerge about the past life of the plateau overlooking the town of Balaguer: the remains of four 10th-century houses, when the capital of the Noguera River was Madina Balagí, and there were mosques, baths, markets, houses and streets that followed an orderly and planned layout, and a fortress. Practically everything is buried; only 2% of the site has been excavated, but, apart from hiding remains from the Andalusian past, the plateau, as it has hardly been urbanized, is a veritable source of knowledge. Excavations have been ongoing for forty years, but one of the problems is that it is not even recognizable as a site and is not protected.