Aroche

Human presence at Aroche stretches back to the Palaeolithic and Neolithic, evidenced by more than a hundred lithic sites scattered across its territory, with Las Peñas among the richest. The Copper Age saw hilltop villages built near riverbanks, and the land is dotted with dolmens. Celtic peoples occupied the high ground of the Picos de Aroche during the Iron Age. The Romans pushed them out and, under Augustus, built an entirely new city from scratch — Arucci Turobriga — on the plain known as Los Llanos de la Belleza. That city gradually emptied from the late Roman period onward.

The Almohads built the castle under Abu Yaacub Yúsuf, and Arab geographers placed Aroche within the Cora of Beja, in what is now Portugal. The town was taken from the Arabs by Alfonso III of Portugal around 1250, then passed to Castile's Alfonso X under the Treaty of Badajoz in 1267, which fixed the border at the River Guadiana. That frontier position made Aroche a repeated battleground. The town also had a Jewish community, whose quarter stood where the pharmacy on Calle Puerta de Sevilla is today. By 1594 it counted 535 tax-paying households. The Portuguese Restoration War (1640–1668) brought particular strain: around 300 soldiers and fourteen artillery pieces defended the town, and in 1642 a captain named Juan Bautista Corbachino wrote a detailed military survey of the entire defensive system, a document still held in the municipal archive.

The Almohad castle dominates the town, and the artillery walls built in the 17th century still stand largely intact. The church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción and the hermitages of San Mamés and Cristo are the main religious buildings, along with the Torre de San Ginés. The Bridge of Felipe II crosses the river nearby.

Outside town, the Roman city of Arucci Turobriga survives as an archaeological site. The Museo del Rosario houses an archaeological collection, and a number of manor houses line the old streets.