Plank Road: El Tocal and Antequera

Here we go with a bit more history and then the commentary on today’s activities. When we left off, the Almohads had taken power from the Almoravids, yes I know, very confusing. But the control of the Almohads was not to last, this brings us to the reconquista or reconquest by the Christians.

Reconquista

Infighting among the Christian kings made it impossible to defend against Almohad expansion. The pope in Rome urged French knights to assist the Christian king of Castile in war against the Almohads, they were joined by Christian armies of Aragon and Navarre. As was the situation among the Visigoths, just when an external threat is surfacing, the ruling group loses cohesion and kingdoms fall. Tribal divisions resurfaced among the Almohads and in Morocco the Almohads were warring with another tribe. The Christian kings took advantage of the turmoil and began to conquer large areas of al-Andalus and Extremadura.

In 1236, Cordoba, the seat of Islamic rule for over five centuries, the once intellectual and cultural centre of Islamic Spain, fell to the king of Castile. Sevilla was conquered in 1248 and every Muslim citizen of Sevilla was forced to leave.

In the twelfth and thirteen centuries, the Christian rulers treated the Muslims with both tolerance and persecution. To secure the conquered territory, the Christians encouraged settlers from the north, there was also migration from France and land was given to religious orders. In some areas the Muslim population was encouraged to stay, they are referred to as Mudejars - from Arabic, al-mudajjar ‘persons allowed to remain.’ This was the case in rural Valencia but not in Castile. Today, Mudejar refers to the culture of Muslims who lived under Christian rule, the beautiful architecture of the Muslim craftsmen is also referred to as Mudejar.

The remaining holdout was the Nasrid dynasty of Granada, but we will get to that later when we actually visit Granada next week. Well, that installment of history was short.

El Torcal

We sped off down the wonderful Spanish highway system to our destination a bit to the south, the area around Antequera. The landscape changes dramatically as the hills of olive trees give way to fields of cereal crops and vegetables, some Spaniards were busy harvesting asparagus by hand today. South of Antequera the landscape changes again to limestone mountains and verdant fields, it is quite beautiful.

We were heading to El Torcal, a fascinating area of weird rock formation. The rock is limestone, which formed on the sea bed 200 million years ago during the Jurassic period. Approximately 20 million years ago, the limestone compressed, fractured and emerged slowly and in a continual process, which is still ongoing today. Over time, rainfall, wind and snow have caused the erosion of the limestone, this particular land-form is known as karst.

There is a trail through the karst that is a pleasant walk, it took a couple of hours with a stop for lunch on the rocks.

Antequera

Antequera is a really nice town, it is built on a hill of course, with the old historical centre at the top and the newer portion at the bottom. We stopped in Antequera after driving back from El Torcal. Our GPS started to take us into some narrow streets at the top so we turned down other streets to get back out and came upon a public car park, which was perfect. Not having to walk up the hill we just walked down some nice old residential streets to the Alcazaba at the top of the hill. The people of this town are very friendly and their maps and tourist information are excellent.

It only cost us 3 euro each for admission to the Alcazaba, this also included an audioguide and they did not demand your first born as security for the audioguide. I asked for a town map and got a very good map, we also got a great little map of the Alcazaba.

The site was Roman, then Visigothic, then Moorish and then Christian. There are Roman ruins at the site, including a Roman bath and a Roman tomb from the first century AD.

The audioguide was from the perspective of the conquering Christians, we had hoped it would have covered the earlier history of the Moors. Nevertheless, it was very well done and we enjoyed the site, walking up and down the towers which provided absolutely fantastic views of the town and the countryside.

This was a very large Moorish fortress, but it was taken by the Christians in 1410 when the Nasrid dynasty of Granada held the territory.

After visiting the Alcazaba, we walked down the hill to have a look at the brick work on some of the church towers. The brick work is fabulous and the tops are finished with tiles that really gleam in the sunshine. We needed a bit of a re-charge at this time so we sat and had a café con leche outside in a little plaza.

Things are done quite differently in Spain than in Italy, in Spain you can just sit down at a table and you will get served. The café was across a busy street from the seating area so the poor waitress had to shlep everything across the street at the crosswalk. This caused us to want to go in and order and carry our own but they would have none of it. After having our café we went over and paid, which seemed to be standard procedure.

Now that we were fortified with the good and strong Spanish café, we walked back up the hill to the Alcazaba and back to the car for the drive home.

Alcazaba