Sigüenza …

… is a small town with about 4,300 inhabitants in the north of the province of Guadalajara in Castilla-La Mancha. The city has been classified as a Cultural Property (Bien de Interés Cultural) since 1965.

Sigüenza is located on a trade and pilgrimage route used as early as the Middle Ages, the Ruta de la Lana. For centuries, the town was the artisan, mercantile and cultural center of a large number of villages (aldeas) in the surrounding area, most of whose inhabitants lived from agriculture. In the town itself, crafts of various kinds developed.

Sigüenza has a large number of historically or culturally significant monuments, such as the Cathedral of Santa María de Sigüenza (built in the 12th-14th centuries), the Castillo de Sigüenza, originally from the 12th century, (this is the parador where we will spend the night and celebrate), and the Casa del Doncel, a 13th-century gothic residence.

The History

Sigüenza was a Celtiberian settlement, then in the Roman period a fortress as a connecting station of the trade route between Zaragoza (Caesar Augusta) and Merida (Emerita Augusta). Finally, the city was taken over by the Visigoths and established by the Vatican as the bishopric of Sigüenza.

The city and with it the castle was conquered by the Moors in the 9th century and transformed into a citadel.

Almost 300 years later, in 1123, the city was conquered from the Moors by Bernado de Agen, who became the first bishop of Sigüenza and Castile. He expanded the castle into a palace-fortress and residence for bishops, where kings, cardinals and bishops resided for seven centuries.

After severe destruction, including during the Spanish Civil War, the castle was carefully restored in its old form in the 70s of last century.