The is made up of a grossly quadrangular line of walls, with a perimeter of approximately . The Octagonal Tower was constructed in the
Almohad style, while the Palace of Villavicencio, which built in 1664, was done in
Baroque style. Within the is a mosque, the only remaining of the 18 once present in the city. After the Christian
conquest of the fortress in 1261, it was put under the command of
Nuño González de Lara. Later, it was turned into a church dedicated to the
Virgin Mary by King
Alfonso X of Castile. The
minaret, still extant, was turned into a bell tower. The prayer hall, preceded by a small room of ritual ablutions, features a
mihrab, indicating the direction of
Mecca, and a
rib vault with a circular window at the top. • the Palace of the Patio de
Doña Blanca, dating to the 12th-century Islamic structure, originally a leisure pavilion • the
bathhouse (hammam), they include an entrance area for undressing, leading to the cold and warm rooms, the latter being the largest in the complex. The final room is the hot room, whose heating system is still partially visible.
The Alcázar Complex The defenses of the complex consisted of a double-walled design wherein a 4-meter-high
battlement-topped outer wall was located 4 meters from the inner wall. That inner wall featured towers located at regular intervals; of the original towers, only 7 remain. These were mostly built using
rammed earth and brick, though there are portions that utilize stone spolia from nearby sites. The towers themselves are
Albarrana Towers and attached to the wall through a short arcade rather than being built into the wall. The castle-fortress itself served as an autonomous fortified city situated within a larger fortified city. This arrangement was a commonplace feature of Almohad building practices. As such, all the essentials of both military defense and everyday civilian life were contained within its walls. These included not only living quarters, baths, and mosques but also supply warehouses and water tanks. The building of a complex of such scale was both due to the Almohad aptitude for refining the construction process to a degree comparable with that of the Romans, and to their diminished use of decorative elements as compared to previous eras. == Gallery ==