Alcázar of Segovia

Few silhouettes are as instantly recognisable as that of the Alcázar of Segovia, which rises above the Eresma valley with its slender towers and slate spires. Those pointed roofs, commissioned by Philip II, lend it a Central European air that is unusual in the Iberian Peninsula, and its outline was so evocative that it inspired Walt Disney's castle in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Years later, Orson Welles chose it as a setting for Chimes at Midnight (1965). It is also the emblem of the Old Town of Segovia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

Beneath this fairytale image lies almost a thousand years of history. Its foundations appear to date back to an ancient Roman fort, and reused funerary stelae can still be made out at the base of the walls. Its true story, however, begins with the Reconquista: as early as 1135, in the time of Alfonso VII the Emperor, it was already known as an alcázar, and the Castilian royal family had its quarters here, the so-called «Palacio Mayor», long before Tordesillas or Seville.

For more than five centuries it was one of the regular residences of the kings of Castile, and 31 monarchs from every dynasty have passed through its rooms. Few European fortresses, perhaps only Windsor, can boast such a continuous royal presence. Its walls witnessed battles, court intrigues and royal weddings, and the Keep housed the Crown treasury, which provided funds for Christopher Columbus's first voyage.

The Alcázar also served as a state prison, the seat of the royal armoury, an artillery college and an archive: in 1437 the books of the royal administration were brought here, the seed of the future Simancas archive. Small wonder that Fernando Chueca Goitia described it as «the prow of Castile and the ancestral seat of its monarchy», or that in 1916 an artillery colonel saw in it the perfect model of the castles sung of by the troubadours.