Village
Municipality of the comarca of Monte Ibérico-Corredor de Almansa, in the province of Albacete, which passed to Castilian protectorate by the Treaty of Alcaraz of 1243, left the marquisate of Villena in 1480 on being incorporated into royal jurisdiction and saw in 1488 the Catholic Monarchs swear to uphold its privileges. It is dominated by a great castle raised on the hill of San Blas, at some 965 metres, rebuilt in the fourteenth century by Don Juan Manuel and whose keep was blown up by French troops; on the slopes extends the cave-house quarter of El Agujero, of whitewashed façades and characteristic chimneys.
Monument
A large fortress raised on the Cerro de San Blas, at some 965 metres above sea level. Built over an earlier Iberian and Roman site, the Muslim fortress was rebuilt in the 14th century by Don Juan Manuel. French troops blew up its keep during the Peninsular War.
Monument
An archpriest's church begun in the 15th century by order of Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, and remodelled in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It holds the 14th-century image of the Virgen de las Nieves, patron saint of the city.
Monument
Rectangular square known as plaza de La Mancha, laid out in the 18th century and the heart of the historic centre of Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón. Facing onto it are the town hall, built between the 16th and 18th centuries and topped by a bust of Charles III; the archpriest church of Santa María del Salvador, built between the 15th and 16th centuries; and the Clock Tower. It also preserves a fountain and several cannons. The Encounter procession passes through it, making its way through the streets of the town on the morning of Good Friday.
Monument
A group of cave houses dug into the soft rock of the slopes of Chinchilla, recognisable by their whitewashed façades and their curious chimneys. Their origin is linked to the Morisco and poorer population that settled here from the 16th century onwards.
Monument
Remains of the city's medieval defensive circuit, which preserves stretches of wall and albarrana towers built standing free outside the perimeter, some of them linked to it by bridges or arches, of Arab influence. The castle and its defences were rebuilt by don Juan Manuel in the decades after 1283.
Monument
The Arab baths of Chinchilla de Montearagón (Albacete), declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 2002, are the only architectural remains of their kind in the province and the only built vestige of Islamic Chinchilla still visible today, a medium-sized city that Arab sources call Yinyila or Santiyila, the capital of a district of the cora of Tudmir. Preserved beneath the old town, in the basement of a house built in the early 20th century that incorporated the old factory, they are part of a hammam that inherited the function of the Roman baths, with two parallel naves and a third, narrower one, covered with barrel vaults; the south nave retains ten eight-pointed star-shaped skylights and a cross-shaped basin in the floor. They cannot currently be visited.
Monument
The Convent of Saint Dominic, a former Dominican monastery in Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón, is one of the city's great religious complexes and the setting for its traditional August celebrations. In the first week of the month, festivities are held in its honour, with the Salve to Saint Dominic sung at dawn, at six in the morning on the 4th.
Monument
The museum grew out of the determination of Carmina Useros and Manuel Belmonte, who between 1973 and 1980 travelled across Spain rescuing pieces from potteries still in operation, after publishing the book En busca de la Artesanía de Albacete in 1973. It opened on 26 June 1980 in a building designed by the architect Carlos Belmonte on a former plot in the Santa Ana district, funded with the founders' own assets, donations from local residents and a bank loan. It holds nearly two thousand pieces from 576 workshops in 47 Spanish provinces, displayed in six rooms grouped by origin, and it also organises temporary exhibitions and summer pottery courses.
Monument
A tower within the monumental ensemble of the Plaza de la Mancha, beside the town hall, and one of the characteristic outlines of the old town.
Monument
Town hall building erected between the 16th and 18th centuries, one of the noble buildings enclosing the Plaza de la Mancha. Its main façade, in Baroque style, was built in the 18th century by Francisco de León and Ginés de Lario; it has a long balcony and is crowned by a royal coat of arms depicting Charles III. The other façade, of Vandelviresque inspiration and with sculpted ornamentation, dates from the 16th century. The plenary hall sits above the Puerta Herrada, one of the old gates into the city.
Nature
An extensive expanse of high plains and hills between 700 and over 1,000 metres, covered with Aleppo pine, juniper, kermes oak and esparto grassland. It is home to a population of Iberian ibex and to the endemic plants of the Mugrón.
Nature
A complex of saline wetlands in the south of the municipal district, comprising the lagoons of Horna, Los Ánades, El Recreo, Hoya Usilla, Casa Villora and Casa Palomera. They are fragile ecosystems frequented by flamingos, waders and ducks.
Activity
Our Lady of the Snows has been venerated as patron saint of Chinchilla de Montearagón since the 17th century, a status recognised by agreement of the chapter on 8 July 1776. She is a small alabaster image, barely 25 centimetres tall, carved around the mid-14th century, possibly in the English workshops of Nottingham, which at that time supplied alabaster sculptures to half of Europe. She is kept for almost the whole year in the Communion chapel of the archpriest church of Santa María del Salvador, and from May to September in its main chapel. Only at the festival of the Soldadesca, on the third weekend of May, is she shown fully dressed; during the main festivities in August, held in her honour, the city holds processions, religious acts and popular festivities through the streets of the historic centre.
Activity
A traditional chant performed in the Good Friday Procession of the Encounter in Chinchilla, whose melody possibly dates back to the 18th century. During Lent the so-called Bozainas also come out into the streets.
Activity
The Soldadesca is a traditional festival of Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón (Albacete), with military and religious roots, held on the third Sunday of May. It takes its name from a Royal Provision sent in 1739 by Philip V, which ordered that the image of Our Lady of the Snows be escorted by a troop of soldiers every time it left its Santa Casa. Preceded by a solemn novena, it is the only day of the year on which the Virgin can be seen fully dressed.
Curiosity
The town received the title of city in 1422 as a reward for its loyalty in the face of Enrique of Aragón. For centuries it was the head of a wide territory on which the then village of Albacete depended.
Curiosity
During the Liberal Triennium (1820-1823) Chinchilla was the capital of a province bearing its name, before the territorial reorganisation of 1833 established Albacete as the provincial capital.
Curiosity
In Andalusi times the city is mentioned around the year 928 as Ghenghalet, and also in the forms Yinyalá or Sintinyala, from which the present place name derives.
Historical milestone
The pact that the infante Alfonso, the future Alfonso X, signed in 1243 with the representatives of the taifa kingdom of Murcia placed under Castilian protectorate the strongholds of the southeast, Chinchilla among them, with no need for siege or destruction.
Historical milestone
After the war against don Diego López Pacheco, Chinchilla ceased in 1480 to belong to the marquisate of Villena and was incorporated into the royal domain; the city thus recovered an autonomy it had defended by arms in the preceding years.
Historical milestone
Isabella and Ferdinand swore at Chinchilla in 1488 to respect the city's privileges and franchises, confirming in writing its status as a royal town and its jurisdiction over an extensive territory that reached as far as the lagoons of the southeast.
Historical milestone
The troops supporting archduke Charles occupied Chinchilla in 1707, in the months before the battle of Almansa; the Bourbon victory in April returned the comarca to Philip V and opened a long period of decline for the old city.
Food and drink
The Manchegan sheep cheeses are submerged in olive oil so that they mature slowly and develop a dark rind and an unctuous paste; it is an old method of preservation in the plains and sierras surrounding Chinchilla.