A land of castles...

Spain is the land of Spanish, paella (a traditional rice dish), siestas, wine, tapas (snack-sized food portions), fiestas and castles.

For the record, I love castles, second only to Spanish.

I had promised myself that I'd stay home last weekend to save money and give myself a break. Then I got the urge to take a daytrip, and so did my roommate and another friend. A few hours later, we were at the top of a hill, sipping café con leche (coffee with milk) and drinking in the sweeping views of the Extremaduran landscape on the terrace of the Quinto Cecilia restaurant, just outside of Medellín.

Medellín is a small town of about 2,300 people 15 minutes west of Don Benito. The Columbian city of Medellín was named after this tiny Spanish pueblo, and Hernán Cortés, the famous conquistador who brought parts of Mexico under Spanish rule, was born there.



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After coffee, we took our time descending from the hill, crossing an old stone bridge and ascending another hill to reach the Castle of Medellín. Lucky for you, we took lots of pictures.

You can see the castle on the right, perched on the hill.

With my Wisconsin roommate.

From what I gathered, the castle was built in 1373. In the 1400s, the widowed wife of the earl at the time locked their son inside the dungeon in order to maintain control of the earldom. As time went on, the castle was handed down from family to family. Over the years, it was the scene of many fights between Arabs and Christians, and the castle is part of a network of fortresses from the Reconquista.

The church at the bottom of the hill.

The remains of the Roman theater at the foot of the castle.

The inside of the castle is mostly empty, except for what's left of the church on the left side.

 

The castle overlooks the town's main plaza at night.

The castle was sold to the government in 1917 for economic reasons. It was used for a while as a municipal cemetery and is now open to tourists, although we were the only ones in there on the evening we visited.

Un saludo,
Teresa