Heritage towns in Cuenca

A UNESCO World Heritage city in Castilla-La Mancha where a Gothic cathedral, precarious cliff-edge houses, and medieval walls rise above the gorges of two rivers.

A walled Castilian town in Cuenca province, its Gothic-Mudéjar castle and collegiate church standing as monuments to the powerful Pacheco family who shaped it in the 15th century.

A medieval city in the Cuenca highlands whose noble lords rode with kings, carried news of Lepanto to the Pope, and left behind a procession tradition still performed every Easter Sunday.

A hilltop town in Cuenca where Moorish walls, a medieval castle, and a Jesuit college trace more than a thousand years of contested Spanish history.

Rising above the plains of Cuenca, Uclés is defined by a fortress-monastery that served as the headquarters of the Order of Santiago for centuries, its surviving towers and zigzag walls still standing over the site of battles that shaped medieval Spain.

A fortified hilltop town in Cuenca's mountain country, its Muslim-era walls still standing, birthplace of a medieval constable of Castile, and marked by every war from the Reconquista to the Civil War.

Perched above the rivers Turia and Cabriel in Cuenca province, Moya is a medieval walled town whose castle, fueros, and contested ecclesiastical boundaries shaped the frontier between Castile, Valencia, and Aragon for centuries.

A highland town in Cuenca where Bronze Age caves, a Celtiberian hillfort, a medieval castle, and centuries of wool and iron trade have left their marks on a single compact landscape.

A Castilian hill town in Cuenca province where Iberian burial grounds, Roman salt mines, a medieval castle tower, and a vast parish church spanning six centuries of architecture tell the story of one of La Mancha's most historically layered settlements.

A castle-topped peninsula in a tight loop of the Río Júcar, Alarcón rises from the plains of Cuenca like a stone fist, its medieval walls, churches, and parador intact inside a declared historic-artistic ensemble.