Palacio Real (Royal Palace of Madrid), official residence of the Spanish Royal Family. The palace is used for official functions and state ceremonies.
30 Day Royal Challenge → Day 1: Favourite Royal Residence
Palacio Real de La Granja de San Ildefonso (x)
Dining Room at the Royal Palace, Madrid.
The Hall of Columns at the Royal Palace, Madrid.
Throne Room at the Royal Palace of Madrid.
Part of Queen Victoria Eugenia’s apartments at the Royal Palace in Madrid: the bedroom and the music room.
(via pastandpresentroyals)
The Alcázar of Segovia is a stone fortification, located in the old city of Segovia, Spain. Rising out on a rocky crag above the confluence of the rivers Eresma and Clamores near the Guadarrama mountains, it is one of the most distinctive castle-palaces in Spain by virtue of its shape – like the bow of a ship. The Alcázar was originally built as a fortress but has served as a royal palace, a state prison, a Royal Artillery College and a military academy since then. The castle is one of the inspirations for Walt Disney’s Cinderella Castle.
The Alcázar of Segovia, like many fortifications in Spain , started off as an Arab fort, which itself was built on a Roman fort but little of that structure remains. The first reference to this particular Alcázar was in 1120, around 32 years after the city of Segovia returned to Christian hands (during the time when Alfonso VI of León and Castile reconquered lands to the south of the Dueroriver down to Toledo and beyond). However, archaeological evidence suggests that the site of this Alcázar was once used in Roman times as a fortification.
The shape and form of the Alcázar was not known until the reign of King Alfonso VIII (1155–1214), however early documentation mentioned a wooden stockade fence. It can be concluded that prior to Alfonso VIII’s reign, it was no more than a wooden fort built over the old Roman foundations. Alfonso VIII and his wife, Eleanor of Plantagenet made this Alcázar their principal residence and much work was carried out to erect the beginnings of the stone fortification we see today.
The Alcázar, throughout the Middle Ages, remained one of the favorite residences of the monarchs of the Kingdom of Castile and a key fortress in the defense of the kingdom. It was during this period a majority of the current building was constructed and the palace was extended on a large scale by the monarchs of the Trastámara dynasty.
In 1479 Isabel I was crowned Queen of Castile at St. Michael’s Church in Segovia as she was staying at the Alcázar.
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(Source: plus.google.com)
#41: Monastery of San Lorenzo/El Escorial, Spain
Courtyard of the Evangelists
Pantheon of the Kings
Alcázar of Cordoba, Spain (by -Kaesar-)
The Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos or Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs was a military building built during the reign of King Alfonso IX of Castile, over what had been a Moorish Alcázar and a Visigoth Fortress in the previous centuries. Isabel I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragón, the Catholic Monarchs, lived 8 years in the Alcázar, where one of their daughters, the Infanta María, future Queen of Portugal was born. In 1486, Christopher Columbus presented his plans to reach the East Indies by sailing westward to Queen Isabel I in the Alcázar.
