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The ruins of what was one of the strongest citadels in medieval Spain, Calatrava la Vieja (Ciudad Real) is located some 10 kms to the east of Ciudad Real, near the village of Carrión de Calatrava. Not even the local policemen of Ciudad Real knew of it and its whereabouts and, yet, the place is fully loaded with history. It appears in history, for the first time, in 785, when Abu Aswad Muhammad bin Abdelrahman I of Toledo rebels against the Cordoba's emir Abdelrahman I. The place was a stronghold in arabs hands that comanded the road from Toledo to Cordoba and was only stormes by christian troops in 1147 by King Alphonsus VII of Castille.
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Western Europe
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