Coria

The exact founding of Coria is unknown, but the fertile banks of the Alagón river attracted human presence extraordinarily early, stone tools from around 300,000 BC have been found nearby, with further pieces discovered at the Ermita de la Virgen de Argeme in 2015. The first documented continuous settlement belonged to the Vettones, a Celtic people who established their capital here, calling it Cauria. Roman conquest followed, ordered by the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who renamed it Castrum Caecilium Cauriense, later Caurium, a tributary city that eventually gained full Roman citizenship within the Conventus Emeritensis of Lusitania.

A remarkable footnote: soldiers of the Ala Hispanorum Vettonum, an auxiliary Roman unit recruited in the region, left archaeological and inscribed evidence as far away as Britain, including a tomb in the museum at Bath referencing a man from the tribe of Caurium. After Rome's fall, Coria became a notable centre of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo and gained a bishop's seat, a Bishop of Coria signed the acts of the Third Council of Toledo in 589. The Muslim conquest from 711 brought further significance: Coria became the madīna Qūriya, centre of its own administrative district within the kura of Mérida, with a notably strong Berber population.

By 740, the Berbers of Coria were among those who rose in revolt against Arab authority, an uprising that forced Arab withdrawal from much of northern Iberia.

Coria's Roman walls, built between the first and fourth centuries with later Arab and medieval additions, survive almost entirely intact, complete with four gateways, two Roman, two later. Within them stands a substantial collection of historic buildings. The Cathedral of Santa María de the Asunción is Gothic in its core, with important Plateresque additions designed by Pedro de Ybarra and a baroque bell tower by Manuel de Lara Churriguera.

Inside, the main altarpiece features sculpture by Alejandro Carnicero; the choir has walnut Mudéjar stalls and a proto-Renaissance grille; and the chapel holds episcopal tombs by Diego Copín de Holanda and Lucas Mitata. The castle was built between 1472 and 1478 by architect Juan de Carrera on the orders of the Dukes of Alba. The Episcopal Palace, built in 1628 in baroque style, retains a Mudéjar brick defensive tower and has been converted into a luxury hotel.

The Palace of the Dukes of Alba mixes Gothic-Renaissance architecture with two Mudéjar courtyards and a Renaissance belvedere garden, and was recently sold by the family of Cervantes Prize winner Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio to local businesspeople planning a hospitality project. Other notable buildings include the baroque Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol, also bearing Churriguera's design; the Convento de la Madre de Dios with its Renaissance cloister and a panel painting by Pedro Machuca; the 1518 stone bridge over the Alagón; and an 1909 iron bridge, one of the few iron-architecture examples in the region.