Coca Castle

Few Spanish fortresses can boast anything like it: Coca Castle can not only be visited on its original site, in the town in the province of Segovia that gives it its name, but has also been reproduced in miniature far from its walls. It is the best proof that this is a truly remarkable building, regarded as one of the finest achievements of Spanish Gothic-Mudéjar architecture.

Its story begins in the 15th century, a time when Castilian architecture managed to combine the Gothic legacy with the Mudéjar tradition. The result at Coca is a building that appeals as much to castle enthusiasts as to anyone keen to understand how those two ways of building merged in late medieval Castile.

The fortress belongs to the House of Alba, one of the country's best-known noble lineages, although since 1954 it has been on loan to the Ministry of Agriculture. This dual status – the heritage of a great family and, at the same time, a building linked to the state administration – is also part of its curious history.

Those wishing to extend the experience will find a good complement not far away: the Mudéjar Theme Park in Olmedo displays a scale model of the castle, alongside other examples of this style so characteristic of the Meseta. And for travellers crossing borders, another replica can be found at Minimundus, in the Austrian city of Klagenfurt, where Coca shares space with monuments from all over the world. Seeing it in miniature has its charm, but nothing beats exploring the original in the Segovian countryside.