Almonaster la Real

The earliest traces of human settlement in the Almonaster area go back to the Bronze Age, with archaeological remains found both in the south of the municipality and to the north on the Cerro de San Cristóbal. The oldest finds within the town itself are Roman, uncovered at the mosque site, along with further Roman-era remains at Santa Eulalia. Under Muslim rule Almonaster was a significant settlement.

The mosque-castle was raised during this period, built over earlier Roman and Visigoth structures. In 1230 the town passed into Christian hands, first belonging to Portugal and then to Castile. It was attached to the Council of Seville and owned by the Archbishopric, and from 1822 it became part of the province of Huelva.

For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the local economy ran on mining. The industry brought a sharp rise in population, at its peak the municipality held over 9,000 inhabitants, making it one of the most populous in the province. The main workings were at Aguas Teñidas, with further mines at San Miguel, Cueva de la Mora, and Concepción.

The mining boom also brought the railway: the Zafra–Huelva line opened in 1889, with its own station in the municipality, and several industrial mineral railways were built across the area. When the mines declined, the town felt the effects of rural depopulation. In 2018 it joined the association of Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España.

In the summer of 2020 a forest fire that started in the municipality burned close to 15,000 hectares across the surrounding area.

The mosque is the town's most significant monument. It was built over a Visigoth basilica and is an irregular structure of brick and ashlar stone on a trapezoid plan, a shape likely dictated by the slope of the ground. In its original form the mosque probably had a single entrance at the northern end of the central nave.

Light was scarce, entering through the courtyard, the doorway, and three narrow window slits, two of them flanking the mihrab. Sixteen undated tombs were discovered inside the prayer hall. Scholars debate its age: it may have been built in the early period of Islamic construction, or it may represent a provincial interpretation of caliphal building programmes.

The parish church of San Martín is Gothic-Mudéjar in style, begun in one century and not completed until the next. It has three naves and carries the only Manueline doorway in Spain outside Olivenza. The Castillo de Almonaster is a fortification of Roman origin, of which only remains survive.

There are also several hermitages, Nuestro Señor de la Humildad y Paciencia, San Sebastián, and Santa Eulalia, as well as a bullring, the Fuente del Concejo, a tannery and its bridge, and the Palacio de Miguel Tenorio de Castilla. Outside the town, the Puente de las Tres Fuentes near Gil Márquez was built by disciples of Gustave Eiffel, originally in iron and encased in concrete in 1956; it carries the Huelva–Zafra railway over the Arroyo la Lisa. The Balneario de El Manzano, a mineral-medicinal spa on the Gil Márquez road (HU-7100), was constructed between 1910 and 1915.

Almonaster is reachable by Casal bus from Aracena or by train from Huelva, though the train station sits several kilometres outside the village. Bus timetables are difficult to check remotely, so anyone planning a visit is advised to contact a local hotel for up-to-date information. The surrounding area has numerous waymarked walks.