The Castell de Bellver ('Bellver Castle') is a fortress that towers over Palma, the capital of Mallorca.
Castell de Bellver, 112.6 meters above sea level, about 3 km west of downtown Palma, is unique in Spain and Europe. Because, unlike most weir structures, it is circular. The castle is built around the inner courtyard and the two floors surrounding the courtyard are rounded. The arcades on the lower floor are Romanesque. The colonnade on the upper floor is Gothic. The whole complex looks defensively closed and impregnable from the outside, while the two-story loggias that surround the courtyard, with their playful columns, express pure joie de vivre.
Surrounded by a 4-meter-wide moat, the castle has three towers that rise above the round parts, while the fourth tower, the Torre de l'Homenatge, is outside the round building and is connected to the actual fortress by a small bridge . Visitors can reach it from the terrace on the second floor, which was a strategic surveillance point. From there, the observer can see many kilometers inland and towards the sea. This is what gave the castle its name: Bellver means "beautiful view". In the bottom of the Torre, a floor hatch leads into a cave with a rectangular window on one side only. This cave was used as a dungeon where the prisoners were thrown from a height of 5 meters. Under the castle there is an artificially created cave system, the Coves d’Avall, which was created by the mining of materials during construction. The castle has been used repeatedly as a prison over the centuries. The most famous prisoner was Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Minister of Justice and Tax, who was liberated by the French at the beginning of the 19th century (from 1802 to 1808). Since 1936, the Museum of the City of Palma has been on the ground floor.
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