Arévalo

People have lived in this corner of the Castilian meseta since prehistoric times. Nearby villages have turned up Roman-era polychrome mosaics and marble sculpture fragments, pointing to a long inhabited landscape before the medieval town took shape.

Arévalo was founded around 1085–1090, during the Christian Reconquista, at roughly the same moment as Olmedo and Medina del Campo. Its first documented mention comes from 1090, when settlers arrived from the north of the peninsula — chiefly from Covaleda, Lara, and Castile. The town belonged to the bishopric of Palencia until 1135, then passed to the diocese of Ávila. Through the second half of that period it sat on the frontier between the kingdoms of Castile and León, growing quickly into one of the most important towns on the meseta and a major communications hub connecting Ávila, Medina del Campo, Olmedo, Coca, and Segovia.

Both a large Jewish community and a sizeable Muslim population settled here. By the early fifteenth century Arévalo's Jewish quarter was the second most important in the kingdom of Castile, strengthening the local economy. In 1463 its Moorish community paid more in taxes than any other town in the Crown of Castile except Toledo, Ávila, Seville, and Guadalajara — a measure of how significant it had become.

The town's political weight grew in the same century. King Enrique IV convened the Cortes here, and his half-sister Isabel — later Isabel la Católica — spent her youth at the Casas Reales de Arévalo. Her brother Alfonso also held court in the town. Enrique IV pawned Arévalo to Álvaro de Zúñiga in 1469, granting him the lordship and duchy, but the Zúñiga family surrendered it in 1480 under pressure from the royal family, and the town passed to Isabel of Portugal, Isabel la Católica's mother, who spent a long retirement here and died in Arévalo in 1496.

The Treaty of Tordesillas was ratified in Arévalo. Later, Ignacio de Loyola — founder of the Jesuits — spent his adolescence here, most likely between 1506 and 1517.

Arévalo holds more mudéjar monuments than almost any other town in Castile and carries the status of historic-artistic ensemble.

The castle — also known as the Castillo de los Zúñiga — stands at the sharpest point of the triangular plateau formed by the confluence of the Adaja and Arevalillo rivers. Originally connected to the town walls, it dates in its current form from the second half of the fifteenth century, with major alterations carried out under the Catholic Monarchs that changed its plan from square to the distinctive pentagon it is today. It later fell into disuse and was quarried for stone, before the municipality handed it to the Ministry of Agriculture for restoration. It now houses a grain museum and opens at weekends and national holidays, with guided visits running every half hour until six in the evening.

Only parts of the medieval walls survive, and a restoration programme begun some years ago has since stalled. The walls once formed a triangle with five gates, the castle at the apex, the two rivers forming two sides, and a double curtain wall with a moat closing the southern base. The main gateway, the Arco del Alcocer — popularly called the Arco de la Cárcel after its time as a local prison — now houses the town's tourist office.

The parish church of Santo Domingo de Silos stands outside the walls on the Plaza del Arrabal. It holds the remains of San Vitorino, patron of Arévalo, and houses notable works including a sculpture of Saint Francis of Assisi and impressive ironwork grilles. It is the main church for daily worship.

The church of San Juan Bautista is built into the walls and was originally the palace church of the Trastámara family. Dating from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, it now holds many artworks formerly in San Nicolás de Bari, including the original sculpture of the Virgen de las Angustias — patron of the city and a devotion so close to Isabel la Católica that she had the image carried to the fall of Granada.

The church of San Nicolás de Bari was part of the Jesuit college of Santiago until the Society of Jesus was expelled from Spain in 1767. It is now on Hispania Nostra's Red List of endangered heritage for its poor state of conservation.

Santa María, on the Plaza de la Villa, has the tallest tower in Arévalo — a tower the street of the same name passes directly through. A restoration uncovered polychrome remains of a Pantocrator believed to date from the medieval period.

Arévalo is reached by the A-6 motorway or the CL-605 road between Segovia and Zamora. The railway station is about 2 km from the historic centre and has Renfe Media Distancia services on four routes: Ávila–Valladolid, Madrid-Chamartín–Vitoria, Madrid-Chamartín–Palencia, and Madrid-Chamartín–León. Once in town, the historic centre is compact enough to cover entirely on foot.