Look up to your left at the imposing fortress atop the hill, defined by its double line of jagged stone walls and the massive square keep towering above the rest of the structure.
This is the Castillo de la Atalaya, the Watchtower Castle. For nearly a thousand years, this stone sentinel has stood guard over the frontier between kingdoms. It is the ultimate witness to the story of Villena. It has seen armies rise and fall, it has heard the whispers of prisoners, and it has guarded the land where the Treasure of Villena lay sleeping in the earth.
Its story begins with the Almohad Caliphate, a North African Berber empire that built these mighty double walls to hold back the advancing Christians. But even before the castle was fully consolidated by Christian forces, it was the backdrop for a legendary misunderstanding. In the year 1088, the King of León, Alfonso VI, summoned the legendary warrior El Cid to meet him right here. But El Cid never arrived. Whether it was a mistake or a logistical failure, the King was so enraged by the no-show that he exiled El Cid, forcing the hero to fight for his survival far from home.
Later, the castle became a golden cage. Imagine a six-year-old girl, the Infanta Constanza of Aragon. She was betrothed to the Prince Don Juan Manuel, a powerful writer and nobleman. But because she was too young for marriage, she was locked inside these cold walls for six years, waiting to turn twelve. While she waited, Don Juan Manuel hunted in these woods and wrote his famous tales, finding inspiration in the very landscape that was her prison.
The stones here hold memories of rebellion too. In 1476, the people of Villena had suffered enough under the cruel Marquis Diego López Pacheco. They plotted a revolt with a secret signal. During mass, instead of the usual three bells to mark the holiest moment, the church rang the bells five times. That was the sign. The town rose up in a fury, chasing the Marquis’s men up this very hill into the castle. It was a bloody day that ended the feudal rule here forever, binding Villena directly to the Royal Crown.
But the most intimate secrets of this castle are hidden inside the great tower. On the walls, starving prisoners from the War of Succession in the 1700s scratched drawings into the plaster. They drew what they missed most... intricate Italian buildings and sailing ships, dreaming of the ocean while trapped in this dry inland fortress. And deeper still, there is a carving of the Hand of Fatima, a protective symbol etched by a Muslim builder working for Christian masters. It was a quiet act of faith, a spiritual shield hidden in the architecture itself.
The castle nearly died in 1813. During the Peninsular War against Napoleon, the French marshal Suchet ordered the beautiful vaulted roofs of the tower blown up as he retreated. For over a century, the castle was abandoned. It became a ruin, a place where stray dogs went to die.
It would have disappeared entirely if not for the guardians of Villena’s heritage. In 1958, José María Soler-the same man who found the gold treasure we learned about earlier-began the crusade to restore these walls. He understood that this castle was not just a pile of rocks, but the soul of the city. Today, it no longer fears cannon fire. Instead, during the Moros y Cristianos festival, it is the center of celebration, filled with the smoke of gunpowder and the sound of joy.
Now, let us leave the fortress and descend into the town it protected for so long. We will finish our journey in the heart of the old quarter.
Please walk to the Historic center of Villena.
