Medinaceli

The first thing visitors to Medinaceli look for is its Roman arch, built between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD and standing right at the edge of the hill. It is the only one in Spain with three arches, and following its recent restoration, which has shored up its foundations, it can once again be admired in its entirety. Close by, overlooking the cliff, stands the former national roadside inn, a proto-rationalist building designed in 1929 for the network of paradors that operated between 1935 and 1978.

The heart of the town is its Plaza Mayor, a spacious square of some five thousand square metres occupying the site of the Roman forum. On its eastern side rises the Renaissance Ducal Palace, built over the course of the 16th century, with the coats of arms of the House of Medinaceli on its façade. After decades in ruins, it was rescued and its ground floor now houses a museum hosting cultural exhibitions. To the south stands the Alhóndiga, also from the 16th century, with its arcades intended for trade, the old council house on the upper floor and, at the back, what was once the prison.

It is well worth getting lost in its streets, so narrow in places that you can touch both walls with your arms outstretched. Within this maze you will come across the Collegiate Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, whose abbots spent centuries in legal disputes with the bishops of Sigüenza and where a Christ of Medinaceli is venerated, and the Fuente de la Canal, a fountain that still flows with water through the channels built by the Romans.

The town's position, between the valleys of the Jalón and the Arbujuelo, explains its long military history. Successor to the Celtiberian settlement of Occilis, it was a frontier between Christians and Muslims; according to some authors, Almanzor died in 1002 in its alcazaba, whose reconstructed remains now serve as the cemetery. Alfonso I the Battler conquered it around 1129 and, centuries later, El Empecinado held out here against Napoleon's troops. Since 2013 it has been one of The Most Beautiful Villages in Spain, the first town in the province of Soria to earn the distinction.