A little more
of Alfajarín.

Alfajarín · ES

Castillo de Alfajarín

On a bare limestone ridge above the Ebro, the ruins of the Castillo de Alfajarín look out over one of the busiest corridors into Zaragoza. Built by the Muslims of the taifa of Zaragoza as a watchtower guarding the river and the road to Lleida, and later rebuilt and turned into a lordly residence by the powerful Cornel family, it is today a windswept shell of brick-and-tapial walls, a half-standing keep and a rock-cut moat. Free to visit and open around the clock, it is a quick, atmospheric stop from the A-2 that rewards you with wide views and a slice of frontier history. What makes this ruin special is its double life. Its origins are Islamic, but almost nothing of that first fortress survives; the walls you walk among are mostly the 13th- and 14th-century fortification of the Cornel barons, who remodelled the castle into a residence. Perched beside the little hermitage of the Virgen de la Peña on the Montes Blancos, it also happens to be— in a local historian's phrase— one of the most-seen castles in Spain, thanks to its position beside a major highway and its cameo on a famous rock-album cover.