Albalate del Arzobispo

The land around Albalate has been lived in for a very long time. Two rock-art shelters cut into cliffs above the Martín river — Los Estrechos and Los Chaparros — hold dozens of figures painted in red and black, including a dancing chain of six linked figures and a female figure with a rayed head. From the Eneolithic period, burial caves in the nearby Barranco de la Hoz yielded human remains, pottery, a polished axe and an arrowhead. Roman pottery and the outline of a Roman settlement are also traceable within the town boundaries, and Visigothic-medieval rock-cut tombs have been dated to between 530 and 598.

The town has Arab origins, still visible in its steep, narrow street layout. Ramón Berenguer IV reconquered it in 1149 and gave the town and castle to the Bishop of Zaragoza, beginning more than six centuries of archbishops' rule. By 1318 it had taken the name Albalate del Arzobispo and work began on the Gothic castle that would become the archbishops' residence. A Jewish community was re-established here in 1400 under the protection of Archbishop García Fernández de Heredia, with permission to build a synagogue and a cemetery. During the War of Succession the town backed Felipe V, earning the three fleurs-de-lis that appear on its coat of arms today.

The old town is classified as a historic-artistic ensemble, its lanes steep and narrow. At its crown stands the Episcopal Castle-Palace, a rectangular two-storey structure built in ashlar stone, probably between 1297 and 1314. It served the Archbishops of Zaragoza more as a residence than a fortress, and the upper-floor windows of its chapel carry Gothic lobed decoration.

The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción is a Gothic-Renaissance building, constructed on the site of an earlier church that was demolished. The surviving mudéjar tower from that earlier building is square at the base and octagonal above, and sits at a slight angle to the new church. Inside, three naves of four bays each are covered with stellar ribbed vaults; the lower walls are ashlar stone, the upper sections brick.

The Convento de Santa Ana, originally a Franciscan convent, has a single barrel-vaulted nave and a plain exterior of rubble and ashlar with a brick cornice. The church of San José, near the cemetery, is notable for its interior vault decorated with figured plaster high-reliefs and for its octagonal lantern tower outside.

Ten kilometres from town, the Sanctuary of the Virgen de Arcos stands on a rocky outcrop above the Martín river. Its Baroque church is divided into two sections: a three-nave hall and a square-plan main chapel covered by a large hemispherical dome.