Spain · 13th century
Ares Castle ranks #8,417 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #515 of the 606 mapped in Spain. Founded c. 1250, it is older than 67% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 1091 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 3 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Castellón de la Plana, 53 km away. See how Spain compares in the castle statistics.
Ares Castle is a fortress of the Kingdom of Valencia, in the town of Ares del Maestrat in Spain.
It was built between the 13th and 15th centuries on Iberian remains. At the very top of the crag is the enclosure, which includes a (ruined) tower 8 metres in diameter. In the left-hand part of the crag is the piqueta dels moros, a fissure in the rock for collecting water. Lower down there is a lower platform where the original settlement stood, and the entrance bastion with its semicircular tower and the cave hewn out of the rock, which passes right through this rock for a length of 43 m.
The castle was the first stronghold of the ancient Kingdom of Valencia to be conquered by King James the Conqueror, in 1232. The tower was last used during the Spanish Civil War.
Machine-translated from “Château d'Ares” on the French Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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