Castle of Olmillos de Sasamón (Burgos)

South-west view of the castle

The Cartagena castle is a fortress built in 1446 by Pedro de Cartagena, alderman of Burgos in the town of Olmillos de Sasamón. It was built as a stately palace, consisting of a rectangular floor plan with circular towers at the corners, perfectly maintaining circular machicolations crowning the cubes and gyratories. On its walls you can distinguish blazons with the fleur-de-lis of the coat of arms of the Cartagena family, the most powerful Jewish-convert family in late medieval Spain. Ownership of the castle has passed through the hands of various families and owners (the Valoria lineage, the ducal house of the Gor, the Arteche family). Around 1989 the San José family bought the castle and after restoring it they used it as a hotel.

Olmillos de Sasamón

View of the town from the terrace of one of the castle towers

Olmillos de Sasamón is a town belonging to the municipality of Sasamón, in the province of Burgos in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León, located in the region of Odra-Pisguerga. In Olmillos there are Celtiberian archaeological sites on the nearby hill of Castarreño, with vestiges of the ancient Segisama turmoga. Around the year 880 a repopulation took place after the Reconquista, almost at the same time as in nearby Castrojeriz and already during the Middle Ages it was one of the fundamental points on the Camino de Santiago, with two pilgrim hospitals.