Continuing my series on old and new Fuengirola (click here), here’s Castillo Sohail (Sohail Castle). Built in 956 AD by Abd al-Rahman III, the castle was restored in 2000. (Click the images for a closer look.)
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| CASTILLO SOHAIL IN THE 1960s, FROM THE DISPLAY ON THE PASEO. |
San Geraldo just discovered yesterday that he’s got a family connection to the castle.
Abd al-Rahman’s grandfather, (Abd Allah ibn Muhammad, Emir of Cordoba) was the first husband of San Geraldo’s 34-greats-grandmother, Onneca Fortun de Pamplona, a Basque princess from the Kingdom of Pamplona (later known as the Kingdom of Navarre).
Great-grandma was a very rare case of a Christian princess marrying Muslim royalty. The union created strong ties between these Muslim and Christian rulers of the Iberian Peninsula.
Some years later she returned to Pamplona and married her cousin, Aznar Sánchez of Larraun with whom she had a son and two daughters. Both daughters married kings.
San Geraldo is descended from one of those daughters (I can’t remember which) from that second marriage. Otherwise I’d be asking for the keys to the Castle!
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| NOT ON DISPLAY. ANOTHER IMAGE FROM THE 1960s. |
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| AND TODAY, ALMOST THE SAME VIEW. |
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The Iberian peninsula in the early 10th century: