Montezuma Castle is near the top of a Verde Valley cliff and is one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America.
Wow! What a fantastic place to be able to see! This was the perfect stop on our trip between Flagstaff to Phoenix. The five-story stone and mortar dwellings contained 20 rooms and once housed about 50 people. A natural overhang shades the rooms and shelters them from rain. Another part of the cliff wall bears the marks of an even larger dwelling, which has not survived. Due to heavy looting, very few original artifacts remain.
When European Americans discovered them in the 1860s, they named them for the Aztec emperor (of Mexico) Montezuma II, due to mistaken beliefs that the emperor had been connected to their construction. Neither part of the monument's name is correct. The Sin aqua dwelling was abandoned 100 years before Montezuma was born and the Dwellings were not a castle. It was more like a prehistoric high rise apartment complex……kinda like the SUPER 8 where we settled down for the night!
Our sleeping quarters for the first night….continental breakfast and the sound of birds happily singing in the trees!
Glendale here we come…………….
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