Albarracín: from the walls to the southern tip: a self-guided walk

By Alleytale

The hanging town, from its walls and castle to the southern tip

Albarracín is the story of who held its rock: the Banu Razin, who gave the town its name, the Azagra family, who ruled it as a lordship of their own, and the Crown of Aragon, which took it in the 1280s. Each left its mark on the walls, gates and churches you pass.

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The stops

1. 1Plaza Mayor

   The town counts this irregular square as its geographic centre, and it sits on what was once a natural moat of the wall, filled in during the 11th century when the Muslim rulers enlarged the town. The town hall on its side keeps the town's fuero, the charter granted in the 13th century by Pedro Fernández de Azagra, and its council room is named for King James II of Aragon, who annexed Albarracín to his crown for a time in 1300. The square is the stage for the biggest events of the year, from the Corpus Christi procession to the bonfires of San Antón.

   

2. 2Iglesia de Santiago

   A stairway off Calle Portal de Molina climbs to a small square and this church. Its dedication was influenced by the friendship between the Azagra lords and the military Order of Santiago, and there is evidence it stands on a former neighbourhood mosque. Alonso de Barrio built the church in its present form from about 1600, and it was finished in 1726 when the bell tower was topped off.

   

3. 3Torre del Andador

   This square tower stands at the highest point of the town's walls, with a moat cut into the rock around it. It began as a detached watchtower around the 10th century and was only joined to the walled circuit in the early 11th. With the castle and the vanished Torre de la Muela it formed a triangle that made the town hard to take, and in the 14th century, under Peter IV, the walls were extended to the north-east.

   

4. 4Portal de Molina

   This is one of the four gates that once closed the town, named for the road that leaves toward Castile by way of Molina de Aragón. Two square towers flank a round arch of large cut stones. The classic photograph looks back at it from outside, with the arch framing the crooked Casa de la Julianeta, named for its former owner Juliana, whose timber frame shows through its walls; the view became an icon of Spanish tourism posters in the 1970s.

   

5. 5Castillo de Albarracín

   The castle crowns a great triangular rock; its oldest remains date from the 10th century, and in the 11th it became the alcazaba of the Banu Razin, the dynasty that gave the town its name. Excavations of a large palace here uncovered a hammam, a bath with hot air circulating beneath its floor, which the archaeologists read as a sign of the rulers' rank. After Peter III of Aragon took the town in the 1280s the castle was rebuilt for the Crown; it was last garrisoned in the later 16th century, under Philip II, and then fell to looting and ruin.

   

6. 6Catedral del Salvador

   Albarracín has had a cathedral since 1172, when its diocese was created, and the first one probably stood on the town's main mosque. The present building was begun in the early 1530s, and its tower, slowed by money troubles, was finished in two phases by 1598, with Roman remains built into its base. Through the sober cloister you reach the 18th-century bishop's palace, which holds the Diocesan Museum and its 16th-century Flemish tapestries of the life of Gideon.

   

7. 7Ermita de San Juan

   This corner is the barrio de San Juan, once the Jewish quarter, and the little chapel of San Juan is considered to stand on an old synagogue. Written records place a Jewish community in Albarracín from before the 12th century until the expulsion of 1492. In the same quarter, the town's former hospital, built in 1789, is now the Museo de Albarracín, whose rooms show finds from the castle dig, among them a notable collection of 11th-century ceramics.

   

8. 8Torre de Doña Blanca and Santa María

   At the southern tip of the town stand the church of Santa María and, beside it, the Torre de Doña Blanca, a watchtower probably built in the late 13th century. From the 17th century both belonged to a Dominican convent, with the library in the tower, and the convent's ground later became the cemetery. The story goes that Doña Blanca, an Aragonese princess, stayed in this tower and, it is said, died there of melancholy, and that on summer full-moon nights, when the bells of Santa María strike midnight, her ghost goes down to bathe in the river.

   

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