The Castle at Chinchón, Spain

After hiking near Chinchón in the Comunidad de Madrid, we stopped at Chinchón's local castle. Actually it's technically a fort since it's made for artillery, but that's splitting hairs. This castle is a replacement for one destroyed by an artillery bombardment in 1521. The early 16th century saw the destruction of a lot of older castles that weren't designed to deal with modern artillery. The designers of this new castle, built between 1590 and 1598, kept the artillery threat in mind. Note that the bottom part of the wall is sloped with a glacis, to make cannonballs bounce off. There's also a drawbridge to stop people from charging inside.
The bridge brings you towards the main gate, which was sadly closed when we visited.
The escutcheon of the builder, Conde Diego Fernández de Cabrera y Bobadilla.
With the drawbridge up, attackers would only be able to get to the castle by crossing this dry, exposed moat.
Round towers helped deflect cannonballs, and those big windows allowed the castle's cannons to shoot out.
A view from the distance, showing one of the ruined towers. In 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars, the Polish Brigade attacked Chinchón and set off a giant explosion inside the castle. This is an interesting fort that shows how builders adapted to the artillery age. To see a more traditional castle, check out my post on the El Castillo de Aulencia.

Back to a different Oxford

I spent most of last week in The Netherlands doing some research for my next book and writing articles for Gadling. I had a great time and managed to see the grand opening of the Amsterdam branch of the Hermitage. I'll be posting more articles on Gadling next week, including a feature on Delft and one on Dutch castles.

Now I'm back in Oxford, but it's not the same as when I left. Two weeks ago the students were in the throes of exams. Now they're finished and most have left, to be replaced by ever-increasing hordes of tourists. I'll miss not having the students around; they are a big part of the atmosphere in any university town, and now that term has ended there will be fewer functions at the university. The best lecture I saw was by archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson about his Stonehenge Riverside Project. There won't be any more of those until September. Now I'll have to deal with big crowds of people walking agonizingly slowly through the center of town.

So far it hasn't been so bad. I suspect the economic downturn has slowed things down. Amsterdam had noticeably fewer people than when I last visited, and my traveling companion who was there last November said it was even slower than before, strange considering he was last there in winter and now it's summer. Maybe bad economic times will give me some respite from the tourist hordes this summer.

A Tour of Roman London

One of my favorite free online magazines, Timetravel-Britain, has just published an article I wrote that gives A Tour of Roman London. It was a fun article to write. The City, which is the heart of London's financial district, stands directly atop the old Roman city of Londinium. Sections of the old city wall and even the temple of Mithras can still be seen today. I've always been fascinated by bits of the past sticking out in the modern world.

Sadly, Madrid is a relatively new city. It didn't become capital until Philip II made it so in 1561. Before that it wasn't much of anything, but successive kings built palaces and churches and made it an important city. Later kings tried to imitate Paris, and tore down a lot of the older buildings to make way for wide avenues and parks, so there's not much left of those early centuries. Ah well, I can always go to London for Roman remains, or Segovia, which is much closer!

Visiting Historic Britain

If you like visiting castles, haunted manors, stone circles, and other historic sites, then check out TimeTravel-Britain, run by friend and fellow writer Moira Allen. There's an ad for it on the sidebar. Yes, I know the link isn't actually attached to the image, I'm still figuring out how to do that. I'm new at this!

Anyway, it's a fun site and I've contributed several articles to it. Check out my articles on the Ely Cathedral and Stained Glass Museum, Southwark Cathedral, the Ashmolean Museum, the London of Samuel Johnson, and much more. There are plenty of great articles by other contributors too.

Castles of Spain

This weekend I took my wife and kid to stay with friends in the countryside just outside Madrid. The main highlight besides great conversation and amazing cooking was a six kilometer walk to this castle. Despite being only two and a half, Julián was a real trooper and walked much of the way. He's a Grizzled Old Traveler in the making!

The castle is called El Castillo de Aulencia and is located at the confluence of the Aulencia and Guadarrama rivers. It was the stronghold of the Arab governor of the region back in the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century it was taken by the Spanish in their ongoing bid to push the Moors out of Spain, something they eventually succeeded in doing in 1492. It was the biggest news in Europe that year, far overshadowing a certain explorer's claim to have sailed across the Atlantic to India.

Most of the castle dates to the Spanish period, with the surrounding walls having been built in the fifteenth century. It even saw action in the Battle of Brunete during the Spanish Civil War. When gardening one day, my friend discovered an old rusted land mine on his property. And to think American farmers brag about finding arrowheads!

The castle is on private land so we couldn't get in. I was all for jumping the fence, but with a kid in tow I had to act like a responsible dad. Ah well.