Berlanga © Mark Wade

The town, on a tributary of the Rio Escalote dates back to the Iron Age. It was fortified by the Arabs in the tenth century and formed part of the defence line against the Christians along the Duero, which included Gormaz, San Esteban de Gormaz and Osma.

Its unfortunate inhabitants passed back and forth between Christian and Muslim hands over the next hundred years, until Alfonso reconquered Toledo in 1085. The Tovar nobility built the existing castle on the earlier foundations in the fifteenth century. Latitude: 38.2837. Longitude: -5.82993.

• Book IV Chapter XXII:

  Having done all these things in his banishment, my Cid returned to Castille, and the King received him well, and gave him the Castle of Duenas, and of Orcejon, and Ybia, and Campo, and Gana, and Berviesca, and Berlanga, with all their districts.

• Book VIII Chapter XIV:

  They went on by Valdespino, and by Parra, and Berrocal, and Val de Endrinas, and they left Medina Celi on the right, and crost the plain of Barahona, and past near Berlanga; and they crost the Douro by a ford below the town, and rode on and came into the Oak-wood of Corpes.

• Book VIII Chapter XXI:

  And they past Alcoceba, and went on to the King's Ford, and there took up their lodging at the Casa de Berlanga.