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Almodóvar del Río Castle at golden hour, its Umayyad ramparts and round towers over the Guadalquivir valley, the medieval fortress whose film history runs from a 1986 Ava Gardner movie to Game of Thrones

This Andalusian Fortress Has Been a Movie Set for Decades

Long before Game of Thrones, Almodóvar del Río Castle was already a film set — a vintage drinks ad, then, by most accounts, Ava Gardner's last film in 1986.

Portrait of Sophie Marchand
Written by

Art history background with eight years writing interpretive content on Córdoba's Caliphal heritage.

Published
Modern Córdoba1808–today
Almodóvar del Río Castle is best known today as Highgarden, the seat of House Tyrell in Game of Thrones. Three decades before HBO arrived, the same fortress stood in for a sultan's palace in Harem, the 1986 TV movie widely described as the last film Ava Gardner ever made. The castle's screen career runs in both directions from that one production, not just toward it.
Modern Córdoba1808–today
From Córdoba city
24 km
Left bank of the Guadalquivir[1]
Gardner's 'last' film
1986
Harem used the castle as a backdrop[6]
Warrior Nun shoot
5 days
Netflix crew filmed here in 2019[9]

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A fortress people know only as Highgarden

Almodóvar del Río Castle rises on a hilltop 24 km from Córdoba city, on the Guadalquivir's left bank[1]. The current structure dates to 760, raised on the site of an earlier Roman fort[2]. For most visitors today, the castle means one thing: Highgarden, seat of House Tyrell in Game of Thrones' seventh season, with the fortress's own dungeon doubling as Casterly Rock in the same episodes[3].
That's a reasonable way to first hear about the place, but it treats one production as the whole story. By the time HBO's crews arrived, Almodóvar Castle had already spent three decades as a working film location, and it kept working long after they left. The chronology, not the resemblance, is what makes this castle unusual.

1986: Ava Gardner's reputed last film, and a village of extras

The castle's most storied production predates Game of Thrones by three decades: Harem, a 1986 TV movie starring Ava Gardner, Omar Sharif and Julian Sands. The crew cast the eighth-century fortress as a Sultan's palace and let the Guadalquivir stand in for the Bosphorus, the kind of geographic substitution period dramas lean on when the real setting isn't available to film in[4]. The interior scenes and gardens were shot elsewhere, mostly at Seville's Casa de Pilatos and Reales Alcázares.
Almodóvar Castle on its hill dominating the Guadalquivir, with its medieval towers

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Almodóvar Castle

Game of Thrones fortress 30 min from Córdoba. Medieval dungeons, Umayyad towers and panoramic Guadalquivir views await inside the ramparts. Book from €11.

It was, by most accounts, the last movie Ava Gardner ever made[6]. The production spent seven days in Córdoba province, and Gardner herself stayed at the Parador La Arruzafa[7]. The shoot also left a mark on the town: 200 local extras and 120 cast and crew worked alongside the production, at a moment when Almodóvar del Río's economy still leaned heavily on cotton farming[5].

2019: Netflix returns, with the same casting call

Warrior Nun, Netflix's supernatural drama, filmed at the castle for five days in July 2019, drafting local men and women from Almodóvar del Río to play barbarians and novices[9]. The same casting team that had staffed Game of Thrones roughly three years earlier handled the call again[8], a small detail worth noting: whoever cast Córdoba's most famous shoot came back for the next one, and went looking for extras from the same town, much as Harem had drawn its 200 locals a generation before[5].
The series' lead, Portuguese actress Alba Baptista, was joined by Tristán Ulloa and Joaquim de Almeida[10], and the wider shoot ranged across Málaga, Antequera, Ronda, Marbella, Seville and Almodóvar del Río[11], six corners of Andalusia stitched into one production, of which the castle was only one stop.

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For the architectural case behind HBO's choice of location, rather than the production trivia, the real building tradition behind Game of Thrones' Dorne covers that ground in full.

A commercial, a chronology, and a castle that kept working

The confirmed screen credits don't stop at two productions. The castle has also appeared in at least one vintage drinks commercial, though few verifiable details about the shoot survive online. Treat it as a plausible, lightly documented entry in a longer list, not a dated fact on the same footing as Harem or Warrior Nun.
What the record does support is a genuine arc rather than a single viral resemblance. A fading Ottoman drama in 1986. A Netflix series in 2019. A Tyrell stronghold somewhere in between. Three very different productions, more than thirty years apart, chose the same hilltop fortress for the same reason: it looks like nowhere else in Spain, and it sits a manageable half hour past the last motorway exit from Córdoba.
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Anyone building a longer day out around the castle can pair it with Medina Azahara, the UNESCO-listed caliphal city 8 km outside the city, a site with its own, considerably older claim on Córdoba's history, film crews or not. For a castle elsewhere in the province, Belalcázar's keep is listed by the Junta de Andalucía as Spain's tallest at 47 m.

Frequently asked questions

What is Almodóvar del Río Castle's film history before Game of Thrones?
Long before HBO arrived, the castle already had a film history of its own: an earlier drinks commercial of uncertain date, and Harem, the 1986 TV movie that used it as a Sultan's palace and is widely described as Ava Gardner's last film. Game of Thrones came decades later, using the castle for Highgarden and, in the dungeon, parts of Casterly Rock.

Is there any earlier screen credit than the 1986 Harem shoot?
There's a mention of an earlier drinks commercial on the castle's own site, but verifiable details — even the exact decade — are scarce. No other confirmed production turned up in the research for this article.

Sources

11 references Show
  1. Wikipedia (opens in a new tab)

    “It is situated 15 miles (24 km) from Córdoba, on the left bank of the Guadalquivir.”

  2. Wikipedia (opens in a new tab)

    “Previously a Roman fort, the current structure is of Arab Umayyad origin, in the year 760.”

  3. castillodealmodovar.com (opens in a new tab)

    “the dungeon of the fortress was Casterly Rock. However the whole Castle give live to Highgarden, the Tyrell's house.”

  4. spanishcastlemoviemagic.com (opens in a new tab)

    “the local VIII century castle served as the Sultan's palace, and the River Guadalquivir as the Bosphorus, separating Europe from Asia.”

  5. spanishcastlemoviemagic.com (opens in a new tab)

    “The employment of 200 local extras and the presence of 120 cast and crew made a great difference to Almodovar, which depended largely on the cultivation of cotton at the time.”

  6. spanishcastlemoviemagic.com (opens in a new tab)

    “Most famous for being the last movie in which Ava Gardner participated, this TV film tells the story of the fading days of the Ottoman Empire.”

  7. spanishcastlemoviemagic.com (opens in a new tab)

    “The production team spent seven days in Cordoba province and Ava Gardner stayed at the Parador La Arruzafa.”

  8. cordopolis.eldiario.es (opens in a new tab)

    “estuvo rodando el equipo de Juego de Tronos, que emitía la competencia, Home Box Office (HBO), aunque con el mismo equipo de casting.”

  9. cordopolis.eldiario.es (opens in a new tab)

    “pasó durante cinco días el pasado mes de julio por el Castillo de Almodóvar para rodar escenas en las que buscaron hombres y mujeres que quisieron convertirse en bárbaros y novicias.”

  10. cordopolis.eldiario.es (opens in a new tab)

    “el protagonismo se lo lleva la actriz portuguesa Alba Baptista, y aparecen caras conocidas como la del español Tristán Ulloa (Narcos, La catedral del mar), y la del portugués Joaquin de Almeida (Desperado, Peligro Inminente).”

  11. andaluciafilm.com (opens in a new tab)

    “El rodaje tuvo lugar en Málaga, Antequera, Ronda, Marbella, Sevilla y Almodóvar del Río.”