Atienza

Atienza has been inhabited since before the Romans. The ancient settlement of Titrhya was an Arevaci Celtiberian stronghold that held out against Rome at the same time as Numancia, and a Celtiberian burial ground has been found nearby at Cerropozo. Visigoth remains also exist, but the town's real peak came in the late Middle Ages, when its position on the border between Castile, the Muslim kingdoms, and Aragon made it a place of serious strategic weight. El Cid passed through on his way into exile, reportedly calling Atienza a "very strong rock." Alfonso VII confirmed its municipal boundaries in 1144 and granted it a charter in 1149, making it the head of a territory of 131 villages covering around 2,500 square kilometres. The town's mule-driver guild grew powerful, and Castilian kings spent extended periods here, trusting its loyalty during turbulent times.

The most celebrated episode came mid-twelfth century, when the four-year-old king Alfonso VIII was sheltered in Atienza while Leonese troops besieged the town trying to seize him. The townspeople smuggled the boy out disguised as a muleteer. That event is still commemorated every Pentecost Sunday in the Caballada de Atienza festival, and a brotherhood claiming descent from the original muleteers' guild continues today. At its height Atienza had fourteen churches, a castle, walls, and defensive towers. It declined after a siege by Álvaro de Luna in the fifteenth century ruined much of the town, and lost further ground to Sigüenza over the following centuries. During the Peninsular War it served as headquarters for the guerrilla leader El Empecinado, which led French forces under General Duvernet to sack it repeatedly, stripping the churches, looting houses, dismantling the castle, and burning much of the town. Since 1833 it has been part of the province of Guadalajara.

Atienza sits at 1,169 metres in the Serranía of northern Guadalajara, where the routes of El Cid, the rural Romanesque and Don Quixote cross. The castle crowns the highest point, and the Cantar de Mío Cid calls it a peña muy fuerte, a very strong rock. In the town below are the Plaza del Trigo, a fine Castilian square, and the triangular Plaza de España with its eighteenth-century dolphin fountain.

At its height Atienza had fourteen churches. San Bartolomé is thirteenth-century Romanesque with sixteenth-century additions, and of the monastery of San Francisco only the Gothic apse survived the French sack. The Museo de la Santísima Trinidad displays religious art, including a rococo chapel and the Cristo del Perdón by Luis Salvador Carmona. Every Pentecost Sunday the Caballada recalls how in 1162 the town's muleteers helped the boy king Alfonso VIII escape a Leonese siege.

Atienza joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2020. The label is awarded by a private association, not the state: a village applies and is audited against around 40 criteria, from how its historic buildings are conserved to the upkeep of its streets, and members are reviewed and can lose it. Atienza is one of 8 members in Castilla-La Mancha, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Castilla-La Mancha.