The Fortress on the Hill

Today, we were like kids exploring an old castle without supervision.

The Alcazaba, fortress, is on a hill and just a 10 - 15 minute walk way from our apartment. We can see it from our balcony. We waited until today to visit it as it has free entry on Tuesday afternoons.

By the way, a Alcazaba or Alcazar is a castle for the leaders in a small city. It included a mosque and houses for the soldiers and workers of the palace and walls to protect the leaders against external attacks and against local revolts.

We walked up the hill, always up, and found the church beside the castle. It isn’t actually a functioning church any more. Many of its art pieces were moved to another church in 1692. It’s only used for lectures and concerts now. But inside there were a few interesting objects. One was a very large stone ball for a trebuchet, a giant slingshot, that was a weapon used in medieval times. Several of these balls were found in the area.

Another object was a huge parade float a Tarasca, of a woman on a dragon with 7 heads!
This particular object has seven heads, echoing the seven deadly sins and the dragon from the Apocalypse. The woman represents faith and the triumph of Christ over sin.

From the church, we used Google maps to try to find the entrance to the castle but along with several other people, we ended up doing a big circle around the castle and not finding it. The walk was great but the signage was not. Eventually a local pointed the way and we had to retrace our steps.

Once we found our way in, we were on our own - no guide and little signage. We just explored and it was fun. There were several areas where we had to use our imaginations to figure what the area was used for it was all good. The dungeon was a deep, dark hole in the ground and the well had the typical curved roof and a fountain.

The highlight for us was to climb up to the top of the big clock/bell tower. It houses the original clock and bell. The pendulum was a huge rock. A little daunting but with great views over the city. We just started going down when the bell started ringing. That was a shocker! Thank heavens we weren’t standing next to it!

We learned a new word - barbican - which is a 2nd defensive wall on the outside of the castle.

Antequera has a very long history. It’s name comes from the Roman period: “Antikaria” which means “ancient town”. Apart from a few historical records and some inscriptions there was no evidence of a Roman Anticaria until 1988, when excavations at the foot of the hill unearthed public baths which are dated from the 3rd century AD. The area they found was small, but it had all the facilities of a typical Roman bath, including three pools (hot, tepid and cold), and a place for exercising. Pieces of the mosaic tiles for floors are in the museum.

The main access to the fortress is through a gate they call the Arch of the Giants. It was built in the mid-16th century. The wall is more than 2 metres thick and has Latin inscriptions relating to both Anticaria itself and other Roman cities that existed in its vicinity. There are also four large tombstones embedded in it.

After a couple of hours of exploring and fantasizing,, we were ready for a cold beer and something to eat. We stopped at a little restaurant called LouLus and had a wonderful late lunch. Seafood brioche, bbq ribs and fries and ice cream. We’ll probably go back!

P.S. Pretty soon I am going to need a break from all that walking up and down stairs and hills!
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