Village
Municipality of the comarca of Campo de Calatrava, in the province of Ciudad Real, in whose district stands Calatrava la Vieja, a site beside the Guadiana with Islamic and medieval remains where the Order of Calatrava, the first Castilian military order, was born in 1158. It also preserves the shrine of la Encarnación, a building of Muslim origin with a horseshoe arch converted into a temple for the patroness, and the eighteenth-century mansion of El Torreón; on the Sunday of the Virgin the inhabitants accompany the transfer of the image from the shrine to the village, some 5.6 kilometres.
Monument
An archaeological site by the Guadiana river, in the municipality of Carrión de Calatrava, known since the 13th century as Calatrava la Vieja. Of Umayyad foundation, in the late 8th century, it was part of al-Andalus for four centuries and was, in the Early Middle Ages, the only important Andalusi city in the middle valley of the Guadiana, located on a required crossing point between Córdoba and Toledo and between the Levante and Poniente of the peninsula. In the mid-12th century it passed to Castile and was one of the Order of the Temple's first possessions in the kingdom; after the Templars abandoned the site, the city was the origin and first seat, in 1158, of the Order of Calatrava. It preserves Islamic and medieval remains and is one of the best-studied fortified Andalusi complexes of the Meseta.
Monument
The Church of Santiago Apóstol, in Carrión de Calatrava, in the Campo de Calatrava of Ciudad Real, is a Gothic church from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It has a single large nave divided into two sections: one of Gothic design, with a presbytery and a twelve-sided apsidal chancel, and the other covered with a barrel vault with lunettes. It preserves an image of Our Lady of the Martyrs, carved in polychrome alabaster in the 12th century in a style transitional between Romanesque and Gothic, and a wooden crucifix known as the Christ of Forgiveness. Before the walls were plastered over, they bore 16th-century murals, of which traces still remain.
Monument
The Sanctuary of the Incarnation stands 6 kilometres from Carrión de Calatrava, next to the old castle of Calatrava la Vieja. It is a building of Muslim origin nearly a thousand years old, which must have been a mosque, as recalled by the horseshoe arch with alfiz on its north façade; on top of it the original chapel of Our Lady of the Martyrs was erected, surrounded by the cemetery of the Calatravan knights fallen at the Battle of Alarcos. Around 1700 the complex became dedicated to the Incarnation, and the current buildings were completed in the 19th century. Here is kept the image of Carrión's patroness, which every Easter Sunday is carried to the town, where it remains for forty days; the sanctuary preserves numerous wax ex-votos.
Monument
El Torreón is a stately house from the late 18th century located near the centre of Carrión de Calatrava (Campo de Calatrava, Ciudad Real). It was built as the manor house of the Counts of Carrión and in the 19th century became the property of the Zaldívar family. The building, of quadrangular plan, has three storeys, and its façades feature brickwork of Toledan tradition, characteristic of the district.
Activity
El Domingo de la Virgen de Carrión is celebrated on Easter Sunday, when the image of the patroness is carried on shoulders from her hermitage to the town, a journey of about 5.6 kilometres that brings together the whole community. Forty days later, the Virgin returns to the hermitage in a pilgrimage. The outbound procession, with the image carried by residents along this route, is the central act of this religious tradition of Carrión de Calatrava (Ciudad Real).
Activity
Carrión de Calatrava celebrates its summer festivities in honor of Santiago Apóstol on the 25th of July, with less devotional depth than its festivities of the Virgen de la Encarnación during Holy Week.
Historical milestone
Abbot Raimundo de Fitero and friar Diego Velázquez accepted the challenge of Sancho III to defend the fortress of Calatrava, near present-day Ciudad Real, which the Templars had returned as indefensible. From that commitment the Order of Calatrava was born in 1158, the first Castilian military order, part of the Cistercian family of orders and, together with those of Santiago, Alcántara and Montesa, one of the four great Hispanic military orders.
Food and drink
A round, compact loaf with a dense crumb bearing on its crust a four-armed cross and two side pricks. Made with the comarca's wheat, it is covered by a protected geographical indication of its own.