We
spent the night in Tortosa and had a great time. Next
morning, we had breakfast and loaded to go on to our next destination:
Alarcron. It was a significant drive, but the roads were
good.
The photos below are what we saw.
Despite
the winds of the previous day, the winds were calm. The
calm conditions provided a mirror-like surface on the Ebro
River.
The
river was calm enough for us to get nice reflections of the
river-side structures.
We
loaded our stuff into the car and headed out on Auto Piste 7 to
the south toward Valencia. Along the way, we spotted many
interesting things including this cathedral in a road-side
town. This is a crop of a 35mm photo shot from our car "at
speed".
As we
started paying attention, we noticed that there were plenty of
small castles along our route of travel. Some were in
acceptable shape, others were dilapidated and run-down.
This was a pretty large structure.
The old
castles turned out to be numerous, and these were only the ones
we could see from the road.
This one
looks to be more of just a mirador (watchtower) rather than a
full-blown castle.
This
mirador is round.
We
traveled a significant distance and then we came upon
Alarcon. This was the real deal, in every
way. Built by the Moors in the 8th century, it is located
on an ox bow of the river and is a very hearty
fortification. But, hearty or not, it was destroyed by Alfonso
VIII in the 12th century after the war between the Christians
and Arabs. Later, in the 14th century, it was rebuilt by
Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis de Villena. The current
structure is as Don Pacheco left it. The photo above
is from a turn-out on the highway that provided a view from an
alternate mirador.
The
Alarcon is a daunting structure with high walls and
heavily-fortified battlements.
This is
the mirador where the previous photo was taken. Note the
style of the lower window versus the upper window. The
upper window clearly shows the Moorish influence.
From the
mirador, we could see the access gate to Alarcon.
In the
opposite direction, I could see Steve and our rental car parked
on the lip of the canyon.
The
entrance tower to Alarcon was impressive. Note the
vegetation growing on the face of the walls.
Across
the canyon, we could see yet another mirador that guarded the
the castle.
Kathleen
booked some great rooms in the castle. There were only 15
rooms, and our room was magnificent.
Great
modern fixtures in an ancient structure.
A really
nice tub area. The Parador system does a great job with
their hotels.
The view
from our room down into the court yard.
The door
on the left was the actual entrance to the castle.
We
decided to walk around the village and got to see yet another
mirador across the canyon. That said, there are minimal
windows for a "mirador".
Further down the river was another mirador. The wall, while dilapidated, once blocked the path by the river-side
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2017 all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.