Castillo de Cullera
View from the N332
Situated 40km south of Valencia on the southern edge of the L`Albufera National Park, the castle is clearly visible from both the N332 and AP7 motorway.
Built by the Moors of the Cordoba Caliphate around the 10th Century on the site of an older Roman fortification.
The town was captured by El Cid at the begining of the 11th Century, but the Almoravid King Yusuf (sometimes referred to as King Yucef) after being defeated in battle fled the field and took refuge in Cullera Castle. Even though the Christians under King James I laid siege to the castle they found in impregnable due to its careful positioning high on the mountain and therefore out of range of standard catapults and trebuchet of the period!
Eventually the fortress was handed over to the Christians, but changed hands a couple of times during the War of the Two Peters becoming first Castillian and then later Aragonese.
During the 16th Century the Fortress served as a bastion against raids by Barbary Pirates who attacked settlements and towns up and down the coast. New walls were built to better protect the town after it`s sacking by Ottoman Pirate Dragut around 1550.
The fortress was also used during the Napoleonic era and later in the Carlist Wars; walls, towers and bastions were modified to cater for cannon and riflemen. At the end of the 19th Century the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Castle was added to the site.
During the Spanish Civil War air raid shelters were dug into the mountainside and the old cisterns were also converted to act as shelters.
The Castle currently houses the Municipal Museum of History and Archeology for Cullera.
View from the carpark down across Cullera across the Jura River towards Gandia
Three rather used C18/19th cannon decorating the carpark
How the castle looked in the 1940s
How it looked in the 1930s
View towards the castle from the carpark
One of the outlying towers (restored in the 1980s), note the unusual hexagonal design
More outlying towers
Torre de la Reina Mora, this was a gate through the old city wall up to the castle.
Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Castle
View from the old armoury across the valley
Model of the castle on its prime
Municipal Museum of History and Archeology for Cullera.
Cartridge from the Carlist Wars cerca 1870
Sabres from the Carlist Wars in the 19th Century
A standard Cavalry Sabre (modelo 1802) and an engraved ceremonial sword from the Napoleonic era
NCO swords made in Toledo from the Carlist era
African spear point
Cistern laid out as it would have been cerca 1870
Cistern laid out as an air-raid shelter during the Civil War
