Wined, dined and rested.

This is a serious, “back off, creeps – my castle is bigger than your castle” sort of castle. It is HUGE. Really enormous, its outer walls 4m thick in places and with the classic castellations along the top.

The length of the walls around the outside is 1,200m, reckoned to be one of the longest castle fortifications in Europe, and although much of the inside is in ruins those walls go on sitting there, on top of a hill with stupendous views across miles and miles of Sorian plains in all directions.

Take a map of Spain, find Zaragoza then follow an imaginary straight line to the left not quite as far as the longitude of Madrid, and that is where much of the “Reconquest” action was, and where this amazing castle is. The Moors ran all or part of Spain for nearly 800 years (the last period, nearly 250 years, was only the area around Granada, but at one point it was nearly all the peninsula), but there were constant efforts by the Christians to “reconquer” Spain, and from the 10th to 14th centuries there was a hotly disputed border area here.

One of the Moorish monarchs first set up this massive structure in 965 AD, using building techniques more often seen in Syria and Iraq, then over the following centuries it was improved, enlarged, eventually taken by the Christians – it took an army 60,000 strong, though, quite a feat in those days – and fortified some more. The famous “el Cid” Spanish warrior was in charge when it was eventually taken, the castle is mentioned in the great epic poem about el Cid’s life, and indeed he became mayor of Gormaz for a while.
Then, “look on my works, you mighty and despair” (“Ozymandias” by Shelley), by the 17th century it was abandoned.
These days you can drive part of the way up the hill, then scramble up the rest of it. It is completely open, no ticket office or curators, and you can wander around the ruins to your heart’s content, opening wide your imagination and trying to overlay onto today’s peaceful piles of stones and clumps of wild poppies the bustle of a heavily fortified castle always on high alert.

Some parts have clearly been ‘made safe’ by modern techniques, but overall those modern ‘adjustments’ have been discreetly done and in no way interrupt one’s enjoyment of this striking site.

The castle is made of rock the colour of that land, yellow ochre, Burnt Sienna (remember that? Shows my age…..) but some of the stones used to build it are truly monumental. There were 10 watchtowers, each with a massive square stone at their base – apparently these towers were set at a slight angle to make storming it harder. They had a huge underground water tank, and you can still climb up some of the great keep.

Despite claims by the Soria tourist office, this is not the “largest” castle in Europe – actually, I think that claim, on the English version of their site, comes from a mistranslation of the Spanish word “largo” which is a false friend, NOT meaning “large” but rather “long” which of course would refer to the 1,200 metres of its walls. However it is impressive, very atmospheric and because of Soria’s location, off the beaten track as far as foreign tourists are concerned, it is never crowded. It is one of the reasons you should take a driving holiday round Europe, you have such freedom to explore and you can choose where you go rather than being taken to places chosen by employees of travel companies!

So thank you to our trusty 21st century four-wheeled steed, thank you Gormaz for letting us in, and thank you Pilar and Ernesto for taking us to such fascinating places. We are very privileged.