Medinaceli

Medinaceli's roots go back to Occilis, a Celtiberian settlement of the Belos people, later absorbed into the Roman world. The Romans built the town on a neighbouring hill, sank the foundations of an aqueduct and settling tanks that still supply drinking water today, and began extracting salt from the valley below, an industry that continued until 1994. The town's position where the Jalón and Arbujuelo valleys meet made it a strategic prize for centuries.

It sat on the frontier between Christian and Muslim territory, and according to some historians the Moorish military leader Almanzor died here in 1002, possibly retreating after the battle of Calatañazor. In 1129 King Alfonso I of Aragon took the upper Jalón including Medinaceli, though it soon passed to Castile. During the Peninsular War, the guerrilla leader El Empecinado used the town as a stronghold against Napoleonic troops.

By the 1842 census it counted nearly 1,600 inhabitants. In 2013 it became the first town in Soria province to join the association of Spain's Most Beautiful Villages.

The Roman arch at the heart of the old town is the only three-bayed triumphal arch surviving in Spain, built between the first and second centuries. Recently restored and with its foundations consolidated, it can now be seen in full again. It was declared a national monument in 1930.

The castle, visible from the valley below, began as an Arab alcazaba and later served as a residence for the Counts of Medinaceli before they moved into the Renaissance Ducal Palace on the eastern side of the Plaza Mayor. The castle now functions as a cemetery. The Ducal Palace fell into near-total ruin but was restored from the late 1990s onwards; since 2008 its ground floor has housed a museum with ten rooms for cultural and archaeological exhibitions. It was declared a national monument in 1979.

The Plaza Mayor itself, about 5,000 square metres, stands on the site of the old Roman forum. Its southern side is occupied by the Alhóndiga, a medieval grain exchange whose upper floor held the town council and whose lower arcades were used for trade, with a prison at the rear.

Other surviving monuments include the Arab ice-house just outside the walls, where food was preserved under a north-facing vault; the Arab Arch, the sole remaining gateway in the most intact stretch of the medieval walls; the Collegiate Church of the Asunción, which houses a venerated image of the Cristo de Medinaceli; and the Convent of Santa Isabel, the one still-active convent of the four the town once had. The old beaterio of San Román, thought to have originally been a synagogue, is in ruins.

Medinaceli stands at about 1,090 metres in the south of Soria, where the Jalón and Arbujuelo valleys meet, a strategic prize for centuries from its Celtiberian origins through Roman, Arab and Christian rule. At the heart of the old town is its Roman arch, the only triple-arched Roman arch surviving in Spain, declared a national monument in 1930.

The Plaza Mayor, about 5,000 square metres, lies over the old Roman forum, with the medieval Alhóndiga, the grain exchange, on one side and the Renaissance Ducal Palace, now used for exhibitions, on another. The Arab Gate survives from the walls, the collegiate church keeps the venerated Cristo de Medinaceli, and the convent of Santa Isabel is the only one still active of the town's four. At the western end of the Roman wall, the castle was rebuilt almost entirely over the Arab alcazaba.

Medinaceli joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2013. 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. Medinaceli is one of 31 members in Castilla y León, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Castilla y León.