Lucena del Cid

The origins of Lucena del Cid are uncertain, though the name itself points to a Roman foundation, and archaeological remains suggest earlier settlement going back to Iberian and even Bronze Age times.

After the Christian reconquest the town became part of the Tenencia del Alcalatén, which King Jaime I granted to the Aragonese nobleman Pedro Ximén de Urrea in 1233. A royal charter issued on 6 May 1335 gave the town its own laws and made it a significant commercial centre. The Urrea family held the lordship for centuries; when the last of that line died in 1798 — the tenth Count of Aranda, a prominent minister under Carlos III and Carlos IV — it passed to the Ducal House of Híjar, which retained it until the abolition of feudal lordships.

During the Carlist Wars the town sided with the Isabeline cause and withstood several Carlist attacks. That resistance earned it the official title of "Heroic Town" (Heroica Villa), which appears on its coat of arms today.

The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Ascensión was built between 1715 and 1739 in a neoclassical style with baroque touches. Its retable, facade, and crypt are worth seeing, as is the onsite Silversmithing Museum, which holds sacred art and paintings from several periods.

The Ermita de San Antonio, rebuilt in 1785 on the site of an earlier chapel, sits on a dramatic rocky spur above the Pedreñera ravine. Its polygonal form is capped by a dome of cobalt-blue glazed tiles, reached through an atrium of rounded arches.

The Ermita-Castillo de San Miguel de les Torrocelles is a combined hermitage and castle of Arab origin, later used by Christians for defence. Pilgrims making the traditional procession from Useras stop here.

The Plaza Mayor retains its medieval Gothic arcade, known as Els Perxes, with pointed arched porticos that remain one of the town's most distinctive features despite considerable wear over the centuries.

The Castillo-Palacio de los Ximénez de Urrea started as an Arab structure, was converted into a noble palace by the Urrea and later the Híjar families, and was partly destroyed in the Carlist Wars before being repurposed as a prison in 1876. It now houses the Ethnological Museum.

The Torre de l'Oró is a Muslim-built tower, sometimes called El Fuerte after its later use by Carlist forces. It currently stands around 15 metres high, roughly a third of its original height, and is in poor condition.

The Torre de Foyos has been a National Monument since 1931. An Iberian military tower dating to the fourth or third centuries BC, it survives in good condition and is one of the few examples of Iberian military architecture still standing.

The old Pósito granary dates from the eighteenth century; it was built to store grain and later served as a hospital.