The castle was once sacked at dawn in a daring raid.
In the last week of July, many of the town's 16,000 inhabitants parade and fight in richly costumed companies los piratas, los tuareg, and los moros del Rif among them re-enacting the defeat in 1538 of the Algerian pirate Zala Arraez, a Mediterranean scourge who started it all by sacking the castle in a daring dawn raid.