Castell de Bellver
Landmark · Mallorca
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Castell de Bellver is a 14th-century royal castle built for King James II of Majorca on a hill above Palma. Its circular plan, with a central courtyard ringed by towers, is unique among Spain's castles and later served as a military prison through the Napoleonic and Spanish Civil Wars. The climb rewards riders with a 360-degree view over Palma Bay, the cathedral, and the Tramuntana mountains. It closes Mondays, and entry costs a few euros.
The castle's Catalan name, from bell ver, means beautiful view, a fitting label for a site chosen for its hilltop before the first wall went up. Master mason Pere Salvà quarried the honey-colored stone for the whole castle out of the hill it stands on, building it between 1300 and 1311 for King James II of Majorca. Inside, the two-story courtyard mixes Gothic vaulting with horseshoe-shaped double arches, a Moorish detail unusual in a royal Christian castle of that period. The fortress held off a siege by Peter IV of Aragon in 1343 and a peasant revolt in 1391, and fell only once, during the 1521 Revolt of the Brotherhoods. Its later decades as a prison held Republican and Catalanist leaders during the Spanish Civil War, among them Palma's mayor Emili Darder. The castle opened to the public as a museum in 1932 and was restored into its present City History Museum in 1976.
What you see
A stone bridge crosses a dry moat to reach the keep, built as a freestanding tower set apart from the round outer wall rather than merged into it, a detail visible from outside the gate before you've stepped inside.
Practical
Free entry Sunday afternoons; under-14s always free.
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