A panorama of the Cortijo where we stayed
‘… Bordering on the Granada Province, Archidona sits at the very centre of Andalucia, 660 metres above sea level. This rural community dominates the valley over which it presides……
The municipality covers an area of approximately 187 kilometres and has a population of around 10,000. Although, as with many Andalucian villages in the 1970’s, there was a grand exit from the countryside and into the larger cities, Archidona is once again a thriving little town, whose economy still depends to a large extent on the olive groves that surround the area, which yield a very high quality of olive oil…
Although Archidona has grown from a tiny village into a small town, many of today’s inhabitants still remember the days when they played marbles and hopscotch in the narrow streets. In the area knows as “Los Caños de las Monjas“, older residents in Archidona reminisce about gathering together in the hope of finding work in the olive groves, being paid at the rate of 15 pesetas a day. Woman took their washing to “Los Caños” – the public wash place. In those days, if a widow or widower remarried, the young people of the village would stand outside the house of the newly weds and make a dreadful din, often resulting in the groom chasing them down the road, firing rifle shots in the air to scare them off. Things have changed in Archidona and there is more modern housing and good facilities, but the general layout and structure of the town has remained largely unchanged…’
‘Lovers’ Leap’ in the distance- or maybe a slumbering giant?
‘A visit to this historical Andalucían town is a journey almost 5,000 years back in time, beginning with the Bronze Age and the native Iberians. The timeline is there to be followed in this fascinating city’s profusion of burial mounds, dolmens, Roman baths, a Moorish Castle, Gothic churches, Renaissance fountains and baroque bell towers.
The first sighting of Antequera in the distance is that of a typical medieval town, with the spires of her many churches and the walls and towers of the great Moorish fortress silhouetted against the sky. Spread out in the valley below lie rich farmlands irrigated by the Guadalhorce River. For centuries this has been one of Andalucía’s most fertile areas, and is currently a leading producer of asparagus, cereals and olives. In summer, its fields turn brilliant yellow with sunflowers.
The enormous crag of limestone of 880 metres high, that overlooks the town and valley of Antequera (see picture, top) is known as La Peña de los Enamorados, or “The Lovers’ Leap”. The name comes from a local legend about an impossible love affair between a young Christian man from Antequera and a beautiful Moorish girl from nearby Archidona, who were driven to the top of the cliff by the Moorish soldiers, where, rather than renounce their love, they chose to hurl themselves into the abyss.The romantic fable was adapted by 18th century poet Robert Southney in his poem Laila and Manuel about two lovers: a Muslim girl and her father’s Christian slave.
The mountain is also sometimes known as “Montaña del Indio” due to its resemblance to a native Indian from certain angles.’ (It does rather look like a slumbering giant?)
‘This small town of some six thousand inhabitants was transformed some years ago by the creation of an ’embalse’, or reservoir, below the promontory on which Iznajar sits in the River Genil valley. Today, to all intents and purposes, Iznajar now has a waterfront, overlooking an inland sea some thirty kilometres long, and containing an estimated 900 million cubic metres of water destined for domestic consumption…
Iznajar itself escaped the submersion that often visits towns and villages in the region of Andalucía’s controversial programme to construct more and more dams and reservoirs to serve this increasingly thirsty region. If anything, the lake below has given further resonance to its unofficial title as the Mirador (viewpoint) del Genil. Surrounding countryside and communications have been radically altered, not least by a bridge built across the reservoir near Iznajar in order to continue to carry traffic on the Archidona/Priego de Córdoba road…
The village was originally a prehistoric Iberian settlement, but flourished in the eighth century when Arab settlers, in the wake of the 711AD invasion by Tariq ibn Zayid and his Moorish armies, built a castle on the promontory and called it ‘Hins Ashar’ (hence the modern Spanish name). It became the focus of battles between various north African factions, finally being taken by the army of Abderramán III. After the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba, then the capital of Al-Andalus, it fell under the rule of the dependency of Granada. In 1431, in the reign of Catholic monarch Juan II, it was taken back by the Christian rulers, some sixty years before Granada was to fall in 1492. Iznajar gained brief notoriety in 1861 when the town supported an uprising against the monarchy, led by Rafael Perez del Alamo, with grimly predictable consequences…
The ruins of the 1,200-year-old castle are the obvious key attraction for the visitor… Parts of the fortified town walls can also be seen in the upper reaches of the town. Inside the town walls, a small square called the Patio de las Comedias suggests that, despite its defensive position, Iznajar once had a theatre culture that probably tracks back millennia… the Iglesia de Santiago church, (was) built over time during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a remarkable late addition in the form of a Baroque altar piece. The cemetery next to the church only dates back to 1806…
The most interesting barrio, district, of Iznajar is the Barrio del Coso, a labyrinth of typical whitewashed Andalucían houses dotted around a labyrinth of narrow lanes that criss-cross the promontory. As if often the case in these hill towns, the ‘lower’ part is also the newer part of town…..’
Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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