The Calahorra Palace Castle is located in the town of La Calahorra, 74 km away from Casas Rurales Granada in Güevéjar and 17 km SE of the town of Guadix on the A-92. It is located on the southern edge of the Guadix-Baza Valley and at the foot of the northern slope of Sierra Nevada. This historical building from the 16th century has a double function: the exterior is a late-medieval style castle-fortress, built with crystalline limestone masonry and ashlars of great hardness and resistance whereas the interior is a beautiful Renaissance palace, made of micritic limestone and dolomitic sandstone.

On the outside the castle is gloomy with four cylindrical towers and walls three meters thick, inside it is of exquisite taste with white Carrara marbles and a stately courtyard. It was ordered to be built between 1509 and 1512, on top of a hill (with an altitude of 1,250 m.) by Don Rodrigo de Mendoza. From the hill it dominated the entire route towards the Alpujarra and the Mediterranean coast across the Puerto de la Ragua.

The work was first executed by the Segovian architect Lorenzo Vázquez but due to disagreements with Don Rodrigo, the Genovese architect Michaele Carlone took over. He imported from Italy not only construction materials but also techniques and artists. This building was declared a Site of Cultural Interest and a Historic-Artistic Monument and in 2010 this protection was extended to the west and north areas of the hill on which it is located. Today it is considered the first major construction of which the work of Italian artists in our country has been documented.

The castle-palace of La Calahorra was built using the stonework of an old Muslim fortress that was on the hill. The building has two clearly defined construction styles because of the use of different construction materials. It has a quadrangular base with four circular towers at its corners which have hemispherical domes; the two towers on the South having a smaller diameter than those on the North.

On the west facade another rectangular body is attached that breaks the harmony of the fortress. It houses inside the palace's grand staircase, a gallery and a hall. The two-storey Renaissance palace is made up of a series of interconnected rooms with a square-shaped central courtyard. The patio is surrounded by two floors of superimposed galleries with five arcades on each side. The galleries have cross vaults that rest towards the inner wall on corbels finely carved in green marble stone imported from Italy.

In the central patio, the decoration of its facades by means of arcades is very detailed, mainly floral and geometric motifs appear. On the spandrels reliefs are represented with the heraldic shields of the Mendoza and the Fonseca. The arcades on the ground floor and the vaults on its four gallery sides are made of white limestone typical of the area. The shields that appear between the arches are carved from Carrara marble. In the upper gallery, the capitals, shafts, pedestals, balustrade, pediment and shields are also carved in Carrara marble. The whole complex and especially the Carrara marble have an orange patina similar to the exterior.

On the interior bearing walls there are beautiful portals and windows, carved from a local orange sandstone and with mythological, biblical, fruit, floral and fauna motifs. In the centre of the west wing, there is a wide Genovese-style staircase, which has three sections and is carved from Carrara marble, although its supporting structure is a local sandstone ashlar. On the ceilings of the main rooms there are beams and beautiful typically Spanish woodwork, made of coniferous wood. In the rest of the palace, the building material is mainly solid brick, covered with lime mortar.

The hemispherical domes of the castle towers are solid brick covered with lime mortar.

In the cellars, the dungeons where the Moorish prisoners were kept are still preserved. It stands in a strategic place that dominates the passage from Guadix to Almería adding to a spectacular landscape with Sierra Nevada behind it.

The Castle is private property but it is possible to admire its interior by arranging a visit. The most characteristic feature of this beautiful castle is the orange patina that homogenizes the color of the entire building and that has been transported by the winds from the west from the neighbouring mines of Alquife, during the five centuries of its coexistence.

The castle-palace of La Calahorra, near Casas Rurales Granada, consists of a military building on the outside and a Renaissance palace on the inside. The outer part was built using the crystalline limestone that appears on the hill where it stands. It is a hard stone variety, not very porous and very resistant and therefore the palace’s current state of preservation is quite good. The interior part however was built with two other very similar stone varieties: soft and not very resistant materials and of great porosity. This has caused the interaction of rain and wind, along with the constructive defect of not having an adequate water evacuation system, to seriously affect its conservation and the stability of the facades of the central courtyard. The marble used in the facades is in good condition.

You can get to the castle by car but it is recommended to leave it in the village and walk up. Visiting hours are only on Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., the rest of the days for groups you must request an appointment by phone: 958 67 70 98