Castillo de Zafra Frongia — Attraction in Campillo de Dueñas

Visited in August 2024

This is a very beautiful location that is a site worth seeing. It dominates the valley and has been a very strategic stronghold since it was first constructed. It is absolutely worth the drive because it is in great condition...and is not falling apart but has been kept up well. We were there with only 1 other couple and it was a very serene and quiet place. One of the most remarkable sites we visited in Spain.

The Castle of Zafra is a 12th-century castle in the municipality of Campillo de Dueñas, in Guadalajara, Spain. Built in the late 12th or early 13th century on a sandstone outcrop in the Sierra de Caldereros, it stands on the site of a former Visigothic and Moorish fortification that fell into Christian hands in 1129. It had considerable strategic importance as a virtually impregnable defensive work on the border between Christian and Muslim-ruled territory. The castle was never conquered and was successfully defended against the King of Castile in the 13th century. The completion of the Reconquista at the end of the 15th century ended its military significance. Although it fell into ruin in the following centuries, since 1971 it has progressively been restored by its private owners. This was a prominent filming location in the Game of Thrones series…it was the birth place of the...

The Castle of Zafra (Spanish: Castillo de Zafra) lies in the northeastern corner of the province of Guadalajara in Spain. It is situated in the Caldereros mountain range and the nearest, little village is Campillo de Dueñas, is still some 5 kilometers away.

Built back around the 12th and 13th centuries, the stunning castle has been passed around amongst the Spanish nobility for hundreds of years. The tall towers of the castle sit atop a massive rock located on what was once the border between Christian and Muslim territories. The flat surface atop the rock is crowned with a high defensive wall that makes accessing the castle inconvenient even for those who live lived there.

In 2016, scenes for the sixth season of the popular series Game of Thrones were filmed here. In the third episode, in a long scene of more than five minutes, the castle appears as “The Tower of Joy”.

Getting to the castle is something else. There are only dirt roads leading to the castle and those are in bad condition. So, especially during wet weather, a 4-wheel drive...

As a Game of Thrones fan, this castle was a must-visit during our recent road trip. It is accessible by most cars except those with particularly low suspension as the last couple of hundred metres would be quite testing. There is a parking zone with information board and the castle is a further hundred metres or so uphill. It is truly stunning and it's easy to see why it was never taken by force. Under private ownership, access had to be arranged with the owners who have been progressively restoring it. But it's still a stunning place to see from the outside and run up those same steps the...