Torre de las Cigüeñas (Tower of the Storks)

While wandering around the city of Cáceres, Spain, you may notice that the towers in the Old Town have been stripped of their battlements. All but one, that is.

In 1476, Queen Isabella I of Castille ordered by an edict to remove the battlements from the Old Town. Only the Torre de las Cigüeñas (Tower of the Storks, named for the birds that nest there) was saved and still survives today.

The War of the Castilian Succession (1475 to 1479) saw two women vying for the succession of the Crown of Castile: Joanna, supposed daughter of Henry IV of Castile, and Isabella, the late king’s half-sister. Isabella was ultimately successful, and thus reigned as Isabella I.

During the war, most of the nobles in Cáceres supported Joanna except for Don Diego de Ovando, who remained faithful to Isabella’s cause. In 1476, when it became apparent that Isabella would win, the Catholic queen decided to move the tops and battlements from the Old Town’s towers as a show of power and to weaken the city’s defensive forces. She granted de Ovando, her faithful supporter, permission to save the Tower of the Storks.