walls

Walls and Alcazar of Segovia

Rising out on a rocky crag above the confluence of two rivers near the Guadarrama mountains, the Alcázar of Segovia 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. It is currently used as a museum and a mili ...

Founded: 12th century | Location: Segovia, Spain

Kraków Defence Walls

The defences of Kraków date back to the 13th century and consisted of a wall with 39 towers and 8 gates, surrounded by a moat. The Wawel Castle defended one end of the town, and the Barbican the other. Today you can still see the Castle and the Barbican, and a small section of the wall by St Florian"s Gate. But the site of the old wall has been replaced by a garden, The Planty, that encircles the city. As you walk ...

Founded: Medieval | Location: Stare Miasto, Poland

Medieval Walls of Avila

The city walls of Avila were built in the 11th century to protect the citizens from the Moors. They have been well maintained throughout the centuries and are now a major tourist attraction as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors can walk around about half of the length of the walls. The layout of the city is an even quadrilateral with a perimeter of 2,516 m. Its walls, which consist in part of stones already u ...

Founded: 11th century | Location: Ávila, Spain

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large ...

Founded: 1961 | Location: Berlin, Germany

Roman Walls of Córdoba

The Roman Walls which once surrounded Córdoba, Spain, were built after the Romans captured the city in 206 BC, making it part of the Roman Republic. Built as fortifications soon after the Romans captured Córdoba, the walls stretched some 2,650 m, completely surrounding the city. They consisted of carefully cut stone with an outer wall of up to 3 m high and a 1.2 m inner wall flanking a gap 6 m wide filled with rubble. ...

Founded: 206 BCE | Location: Córdoba, Spain

Walls of Seville

The Walls of Seville are a series of defensive walls surrounding the Old Town. They were built in times of Julius Caesar, approximately between the years 68 and 65 BC, when he was quaestor of the city. This new fortification was aimed at replacing the old Carthaginian stockade of logs and mud. The walls were expanded and refined during the rule of his son Augustus due to the growth of the city. The city has been surround ...

Founded: 68-65 BCE | Location: Seville, Spain

Vannes City Walls

In the third century AD, the city of Vannes, called Darioritum, acquires the right to fortify. Thus, west of the Gallo-Roman city, a castrum was built. During the Middle Ages, the castrum becomes the centre of the city. Extended in the 14th century, it is reinforced in the 15th century. Over the following two centuries, the ramparts are modernised with the construction of the Garenne buttress. Several medieval gates has b ...

Founded: 14-15th centuries | Location: Vannes, France

Astorga Roman Walls

The Roman walls of Astorga were built at the end of the 3rd century AD or beginning of the next century. The reasons that caused its construction are related to a period of instability experienced in the last years of the Roman Empire, especially originated by the incursions of the barbarian towns from the center of Europe. The walls has a length of 2,2 km. At the end of the thirteenth century, repairs were documented by ...

Founded: 3rd century AD | Location: Astorga, Spain

Le Mans Roman Walls

The Roman wall in the old town of Le Mans is one of the best of its type still extant in France. The 1300m long construction is laid out with 12 towers wraps around the immaculately preserved and restored Plantagenet Old City. There are only two longer ancient Roman walls left, in Rome and Istanbul (Constantinopole). These walls are highlighted every summer (July and August) evening in a light show that tells the history ...

Founded: 300 AD | Location: Le Mans, France

Venetian Walls of Bergamo

The Lombardian city of Bergamo is composed of two parts, Città Alta (Upper Town), built up on the hills, and the Città Bassa (Lower Town), which is a lively financial, industrial and administrative centre of national importance. A milestone in the history of Bergamo was its incorporation into the Venetian State in 1428, which lasted for over three centuries and a half. The two parts of city are separated, both physical ...

Founded: 1561 | Location: Bergamo, Italy

A Coruña City Walls

The walls surrounding ancient A Coruña were built in the 13th century by the order of king Alfonso IX. They were damaged by English and Portugalian armies in 1730, 1386 and again in 1589. Today some parts remain, mainly around Jardín de San Carlos (Gardens of San Carlos).

Founded: 13th century | Location: A Coruña, Spain

City walls of Toledo

Toledo was walled by Romans, and a lot of its stones were reused later in built walls, as the original perimeter was subsequently tripled. The Visigothic King Wamba renewed the Roman fortifications, sculpting in its gates an inscriptions. The inscriptions were destroyed by the Muslims, and restored in 1575 by the Corregidor Juan Gutiérrez Tello. The Arabs widened the city and the walls. After the Reconquista, the ...

Founded: 0-100 AD | Location: Toledo, Spain

Roman Walls of Lugo

Roman Walls of Lugo are an exceptional architectural, archaeological and constructive legacy of Roman engineering, dating from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Walls are built of internal and external stone facings of slate with some granite, with a core filling of a conglomerate of slate slabs and worked stone pieces from Roman buildings, interlocked with lime mortar. Their total length of 2117 m in the shape of an obl ...

Founded: 3rd century AD | Location: Lugo, Spain

Walls of León

The walls that can be seen today in León were built between the 3rd and 4th century by the Romans. The medieval wall that extends to the south is an addition built by King Alfonso VI at the end of the 14th century.

Founded: 200-300 AD | Location: León, Spain

Piran Town Walls

Significant parts of the city walls of Piran remain well-preserved. Piran"s three walls were built in response to the city"s expansion. The first wall was built in the 7th century, separating the town into four streets. The first wall can be seen in the old part of the town. The wall was moved south-west when new streets were built. The fortification wall, which was built along the southern coast of the town, ha ...

Founded: 1470-1538 | Location: Piran, Slovenia

Walls of Ston

The Walls of Ston are a series of defensive stone walls, originally more than 7 kilometres long, that surrounded and protected the city of Ston. Their construction was begun in 1358. Today, it is one of the longest preserved fotification systems in the world. Despite being well protected by massive city walls, the Republic of Ragusa used Pelješac to build another line of defence. At its narrowest point, just before it j ...

Founded: 1358 | Location: Ston, Croatia

Mansilla de las Mulas Walls

The walls of Mansilla de las Mulas, the greatest example of medieval fortification in the province of León date back to the 12th century, the period, in which Fernando II repopulated the town. Every forty metres there were watchtowers that connected the walls, now disappeared. Remains of the fortification include large fragments of the wall and several battlement towers.

Founded: 12th century | Location: Mansilla de las Mulas, Spain

Roman Town Walls

According to an inscription found next to the eastern town gate of Emona, on the site of the present Trg francoske revolucije square, the Roman town walls were built between 14 and 15 AD. The rectangular-shaped walls surrounding the town centre measured 2.4 metres wide and from 6 to 8 metres high. They included at least 26 towers and four main gates. The towers were erected at equal distances along the length of the walls ...

Founded: 14-15 AD | Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Elbasan Castle Walls

Elbasan castle is a 15th-century fortress, initially composed of 26 equidistant 9-metre high towers. The site seems to have been abandoned until the Ottoman army built a military camp there, followed by urban reconstruction under Sultan Mehmet II in 1466. Mehmet constructed a massive four-sided castle with a deep moat and three gates. He named it Elbasan, meaning "conquered country" in Turkish. He had built the ...

Founded: 15th century | Location: Elbasan, Albania