If you have ever imagined a fairy-tale castle, all soaring towers and pointed blue-grey spires rising against the sky, there is a good chance the picture in your head owes

Crowning the very highest point of the ancient city of Toledo, its four square towers rising above a maze of medieval streets, stands the Alcázar, one of the most storied

In the middle of the great river Tagus, in central Portugal, a small rocky island rises from the flowing water, and on it stands one of the most romantic castles

Most great castles rely on a mountain, a crag, or a river bend to make them strong. The Castle of Coca, rising from the flat farmland of central Spain, has

Every nation has a place it regards as its birthplace, a spot where its story is felt to have begun. For Portugal, that place is a hill in the north

On a low hill above the town of Medina del Campo, in the heart of the plains of Castile, rises a great fortress of red brick: the Castillo de la

High in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees, clinging to a great outcrop of grey rock, stands one of the oldest and most complete castles in all of Spain: the

Not far from Madrid, at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, stands one of the most beautiful and best-preserved castles in all of Spain: the Castle of Manzanares

From the plains of Castile, in the heart of the great Spanish wine country of the Ribera del Duero, rises one of the most extraordinary castles in the world. The

Rising from the very center of one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, the Citadel of Aleppo is not merely a castle but a mountain of memory. For