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Santa
Barbara Castle, Alicante |
Alicante
has many natural advantages making it a rich prize: a fabulous
harbour, rich fishing grounds, fertile farmland. So Santa
Barbara Castle, on top of a mountain overlooking the town
like a huge big brother, must have provided much needed protection
from invaders and raiders. Now, recently restored, with parts
of it turned into pleasant garden areas, during the day it
has tremendous views over the city, the sea and inland, while
at night it is lit up and offers the eye an attractive alternative
to the glitter of the port below.
Enough — I have to stop somewhere. With sufficient time,
an enthusiast could castle-hop all the way up the Levante
to Catalonia, where
even popular resorts like Lloret and Tossa de Mar have their
castles, and places like Peralada are appreciated by castle
connoisseurs. The Pyrenees and Navarre have their place in
military history, too, of course, which would lead you to
the Basque Country and the rest of the north of Spain, from
where you would be drawn towards Portugal, worthy of a whole
book of its own in terms of castles. And if we step outside
the mediaeval timeframe of this article, there is much more
for the studious and enthusiasts alike: Roman and pre-Roman
remains, works from the Napoleonic wars, traces of the Spanish
Civil War...
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| The
Castle-Parador, Sigüenza |
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Castle Hotels. To end the day, if your budget allows,
it is a special thrill to sleep in a castle (especially in
a four-poster bed) and many Spanish paradors
(Olite,
Zafra...)
are converted palaces or castles. The parador at Sigüenza
is one of my favourites, a hugely imposing building which
was, in fact, pretty well destroyed during the Civil War.
It was rebuilt in the fifties with tremendous diligence and
authenticity, but in many ways it is a new building. Looking
at this benevolently, it means a stay there gives you a more
authentic impression (flush toilets and central heating aside)
of what living there would really have been like — they
were not ruins when people lived in them. And at the Sigüenza
parador, as in many others, an added attraction is that its
restaurant is a real living museum of regional cuisine, offering
traditional local dishes which can simply no longer be found
elsewhere.
Other web pages of interest
Most of the private castle owners in Spain, including marquises
and dukes, are members of the Asociación
Española de Amigos del Castillo, so they know their stuff.
Their site is in Spanish, however, with a little token English,
much of it does not work properly, and their project of cataloguing
all the fortification structures in the country seems to have
been forgotten about.
Ismael
Barba's web page, in contrast, is well constructed, with
great photos and an indispensable links
page.
Ibercastillos.com
(Spanish only) used to have a directory of castles for sale,
though it has been down for so long I think they have given
up. It does maintain an exhaustive list of fortifications
in the different regions of Spain, though.
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