Beauty and nobility
Calaceite
Calaceite is an attractive small town with beautiful streets, stately buildings, fine squares and grand porticos and arcades. The Town Hall, dating from the Renaissance, and the Baroque church both have impressive façades.
Calaceite is one of the best-preserved towns in the Matarraña, full of grand houses, chapels, shrines and doorways that recall the town’s glory in its heyday.
Admire the Renaissance façade of the town hall and enjoy a stroll up Calle Mayor, across Plaza de España and down Calle Maella.
Visit the impressive parish church and the Juan Cabré Museum, named after the famous archaeologist born in the town who was the driving force behind the archaeological excavations in the Matarraña.
Calaceite
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Plaza de España
Also known as Plaza Mayor or Plaza del Sitjar, Plaza de España is Calaceite’s hub. Built in the fourteenth century, it is circled by arcades where popular assemblies used to be organised and where the town’s market is still held to this day. The impressive Town Hall on one side of the square is Renaissance in style and was built in 1609.
The old quarter of Calaceite
Calaceite is an ideal place for taking a stroll along its pretty streets, some of the cobbled, among them Calle Mayor and Calle Maella.
Calle Maella is one of the most attractive streets in Calaceite, as it is lined with stately buildings decorated with wrought-iron balconies and the coats of arms of noble families in true medieval style.
Portal de Orta gate and Chapel of San Antonio
In the old quarter we find the Portal de Orta, one of the two surviving gates in the town’s original defensive walls. Above the Portal de Orta is a Baroque chapel dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua. This combination of a defensive element turned over to religious use is one the notable characteristics of the architectural heritage in the Matarraña.
Juan Cabré Museum
This museum is run by the Government of Aragon. It has three main collections: exhibits related to Juan Cabré, contemporary art and ethnology.
It came into being as a museum devoted to the life and work of the archaeologist Juan Cabré Aguiló (Calaceite, 1882 – Madrid, 1947) but has since become a cultural centre of excellence on archaeology in general, the plastic arts of contemporary times and ethnology.
The Parish Church of La Asunción
From Plaza de España, head up Calle de la Iglesia and you will soon come of the Parish Church of La Asunción , a Baroque church dating from the eighteenth century built on the site of a fourteenth-century Gothic church.
The church is of impressive size and beauty and has an imposing main door flanked by two Solomonic columns and decorated with the Calaceite coat of arms.
Iberian settlements of San Antonio and Tossal Redó
The remains of the Iberian settlement of San Antonio are at the western tip of the Cerro de San Antonio, a hill just a kilometre or so outside the town. The urban lay-out of the paved streets in the settlement and the remains of the dwellings with a rectangular floor plan that line them are well preserved. The town has another Iberian settlement, known as Tossal Redó. Both were excavated in the opening decades of the twentieth century by the renowned archaeologist from Calaceite Juan Cabré.
Chapel of El Pilar
Situated at the end of Calle Maella, this former gate in the defensive walls was given over to religious worship when a Baroque chapel was built above it at the end of the eighteenth century.
The chapel is closed all year round except on 12 October, the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Pillar, and on Corpus Christi.
Plaza de los Artistas
Calaceite has always been a magnet for artists, writers and scholars. This square, near the Portalet de Maella, was laid out in 1999 as a tribute to the artists and intellectuals who have come to the town.
Keen to visit the Matarraña?
Choose one of our houses steeped in rural charm as your place to stay in the Matarraña.
Discover the charms of El Patio de la Torreta and Casa Almudí, which will delight your family and friends.
