Villena is crowned by its Arab castle, with its magnificent keep topped by projecting turrets, the entrance flanked by two other towers. Its lower floors have fine vaults of intercrossing arches, reckoned to be the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula. The castle looks down on a good part of the Valle del Vinalopó and the irregular mesh of the town?s streets.

The town is of Arab origin and has grown up around the fortress. Come the Christian occupation in the thirteenth century, it spread down to the flat land below, this then becoming the main part of the town around the Gothic-Renaissance-style Iglesia de Santiago. This is where the City Hall stands today, a sixteenth-century building with a magnificent cloister. The old Arab quarter thus became an outlying part of the new Christian town; in the sixteenth century its mosque was converted into the Iglesia de Santa María, a Gothic church with a simple Baroque portal.

When visiting Villena it is also worthwhile spending some time in its squares, such as the Plaza Mayor or the Plaza de las Malvas, visiting its various museums and trying its varied cuisine and famous wines.

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