Olite Royal Castle Gothic
— the towers a young king kept adding.
Not only on a wall.
Olite Royal Castle Gothic, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The Royal Palace at Olite was the principal residence of the kings of Navarre in the late Middle Ages. Charles III the Noble rebuilt it from 1387 onward, adding towers, courtyards, gardens, and (according to chroniclers) a small zoo. After the Spanish conquest of Navarre in 1512 the palace declined; a fire in 1813 left it a ruin. Restoration by the Navarrese provincial council began in 1937 and continues today.
The place, in three passes.
The Palacio Real de Olite sits in the town of Olite in Navarre, about 42 km south of Pamplona in northern Spain. The complex consists of an older Romanesque fortress (the Palacio Viejo, now a Parador hotel) and the much larger Gothic Palacio Nuevo built by Charles III of Navarre between 1387 and 1419. At its medieval peak the palace had fifteen named towers, hanging gardens, and a menagerie. The site was declared a National Monument in 1925 and is administered today by the Government of Navarre.
The Palacio Nuevo is built of local sandstone in the French-influenced Gothic civil style that Charles III had seen at the courts of Paris and Avignon. The walls are thinner than a true fortress would carry, and the towers are taller and more slender: the palace was built for residence, not for siege. The fifteen towers include the Torre del Homenaje, the Torre de las Tres Coronas, and the Torre de la Atalaya, each named, each different. Restoration since 1937 has used the original sandstone from nearby quarries.
The palace is open daily. General admission to the Palacio Nuevo includes access to most of the towers and the inner courtyards; an audio guide covers the Gothic ground floor, the queen's chambers, and the hanging garden. Adjacent, the Palacio Viejo operates as a Parador (state-run historic hotel). The Festival of Medieval Days (Días Medievales) takes over the town for three days each August, drawing roughly 70,000 visitors. The town also sits at the centre of the Navarre wine route.
