Visit to Castle of Baños de la Encina

The impressive silhouette of the castle of Bury al-Hamma dominates the rural landscape of the town of Baños de la Encina, flanked by a robust and crenellated wall with fourteen towers, plus a fifteenth or Christian Tower of Homage, the castle has hardly suffered damage, constituting, therefore, the best preserved fortified complex of the Almohad period, at the same time that it is one of the best preserved Muslim castles in all of Spain. Already in the Copper Age (prehistory), the first vestiges of occupation of the site of the Castle of Baños appear, in its interior strong Iberian walls and a funeral mausoleum of a sacred nature, give way to a complex Almohad urban planning (12th century), in addition to a double "water chest" or cistern. The construction of the castle was as simple as it was durable, the walls are raised of mud with a high proportion of lime, earth, Chinese river and water. 15 square towers form this colossus of peculiar oval shape, adapting its construction to the ridged Cerro del Cueto. After the excavations carried out, it is possible to verify the Muslim presence from the emral period, being the Castle, together with other nearby ones, rigid control of the Sierra Morena passes and the Guadiel depression during the 12th century. It became definitively Castilian after the capture in 1225 by Fernando III, adding the alcazarejo, enveloping and raising one of the Arab towers by means of stone, giving rise to the Torre del Homenaje or Almena Gorda. It was declared a National Monument in 1931.