Qualla: Castle of Almansa https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:38:46 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/j/castle-of-almansa-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Castle of Almansa https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa Castle of Almansa: Introduction https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa/ Photo credit Satrack from Albacete, España, CC BY-SA 2.0. From the flat, irrigated farmland of eastern Castile, a single pale crag jumps up without warning, and a castle grips its summit like a hand closed around a fist of rock. This is Almansa. The name may sound unfamiliar, but it is stamped across the maps of European history, because on the plain below this castle a single afternoon in 1707 decided the fate of a Spanish throne.

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Image: Satrack from Albacete, España | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/j/castle-of-almansa-wp/eyzj-castle-of-almansa-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Castle of Almansa: The Crag Above the Plain https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa/ Photo credit Falconaumanni, CC BY-SA 3.0. The hill is called the Cerro del Aguila, the Eagle's Crag, a knuckle of white limestone rising abruptly from a fertile, well-watered plain. For anyone controlling the frontier between Castile and the old Kingdom of Valencia, it was an obvious place to build. You reach the monumen...

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Image: Falconaumanni | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/j/castle-of-almansa-wp/eyzj-castle-of-almansa-the-crag-above-the-plain.mp3 0:06 2 full Castle of Almansa: Whose Walls Are These? https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa/ Photo credit Millars, CC BY-SA 4.0. For generations the oldest walls were read as the work of the Almohads, the North African dynasty that favored rammed earth, layers of packed soil rising into surprisingly durable ramparts. Then restoration in 2008 complicated the story. Analysis of the surviving rammed-earth sec...

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Image: Millars | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/j/castle-of-almansa-wp/eyzj-castle-of-almansa-whose-walls-are-these.mp3 0:06 3 full Castle of Almansa: The Day the War Turned https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa/ Photo credit Millars, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 25 April 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession, two armies met below the crag. One fought for Philip V, the Bourbon claimant; the other for his Habsburg rival, Archduke Charles of Austria. The tangle of loyalties was almost absurd. The Bourbon force was led by the Duk...

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Image: Millars | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/j/castle-of-almansa-wp/eyzj-castle-of-almansa-the-day-the-war-turned.mp3 0:06 4 full Castle of Almansa: What Remains https://qualla.com/castle-of-almansa/ Photo credit Pedro Mondejar, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. The castle survived where the men did not. Restored and reopened, it draws visitors up the steps for the view and the walls, and the town keeps the memory of the battle alive in a dedicated museum and in reenactments that fill the streets each spring. Climb to the keep and the ge...

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Image: Pedro Mondejar | CC BY-SA 3.0 es

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/j/castle-of-almansa-wp/eyzj-castle-of-almansa-what-remains.mp3 0:06 5 full