On the top of a solitary hill, just outside the Spanish small town of Alconchel, there is an elegant castle that can be easily noticed from a very long distance.
This beautiful medieval fortress is the Castle of Miraflores, originally built during the Islamic Period, just after the fall of the Córdoba Califate - ie, in the early years of the XI Century. The Castle was successively conquered by the Kingdom of Portugal (in 1166), by the Almohad Empire (in 1174), and by the Kingdom of Leon in the early XIII Century. Despite the fact that the original Miraflores Castle was (probably) built in the early XI Century, the structure that exists today was made in the middle of the XII Century, being restored countless times over the course of the last centuries.
Between 1264 and 1313, this fortress belonged to the Templar Knights, but, with the end of the famous military order, the castle was given to the Knights of Alcántara.
