Setenil de las Bodegas, Andalucía, Spain IN 4 HOURS 29 July 2021 | A most unique village!

One of the most unique villages to visit in Andalucia is Setenil de las Bodegas. This Pueblo Blanco is famous for its houses that have been built into and under rock overhangs.
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Due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions during my visit, access to sites and locations were limited, had altered opening hours or closed. Also, taking in Setenil de las Bodegas in only four hours may put limits to what is feasable.
Named after its once flourishing wineries - bodegas - Setenil is unique among the pueblos blancos, the white villages of Andalucia. Where most pueblos blancos were built on protective bluffs and pinnacles, this town grew out of a network of caves in the cliffs above the rio Trejo north-west of Ronda. Its blinding white houses seem to emerge from the rocks, and some have rock roofs and even olive groves on their roofs.
There has been a human settlement here since at least the Arabic Almohad period in the twelfth century. Given the evidence of other nearby cave-dwelling societies, such as those at the Cueva de la Pileta west of Ronda, where habitation has been tracked back more than 25,000 years, it is possible that Setenil was occupied very much earlier. Most evidence of this would have been erased in its continued habitation. It was certainly occupied during the Roman invasion of the region in the first century AD.
Modern Setenil begins in 1484, relatively late in the Christian Reconquest, when the Christian armies expelled its Moorish, Granada-led Nasrid rulers. It took the Christians fifteen days to expel the Moors from the Castillo, castle, at the top of the town, of which only ruins remains today. The town name is believed to have been taken from the Roman Latin phrase "septem nihil", "seven times no", a phrase possibly linked to earlier invasions or skirmishes. The full moniker Setenil de las Bodegas dates from the 15th century, when its new, Christian, rulers developed an agricultural base of olives, almonds and vineyards. The first two still flourish on the hills and rooftops of Setenil, but its wine trade was wiped out by the phylloxera insect infestation of the 1860s, which effectively destroyed most European vine stocks.
Over the centuries, Setenil also gained a reputation for its meat products, particularly chorizo, sausage, and pork from pigs bred in the surrounding hills. As well as meat, it is has a reputation for producing fine pasteles, pastries, and its bars and restaurants are among the best in the region. Its outlying farms also provide Ronda and other local towns with much of their fruit and veggies.
The ruined Moorish castle, the Torre del Homenage and the nearby church of the Encarnación, are recommended sites to visit in Setenil de las Bodegas. Closeby you will find the tourism centre housed in a medieval building (Antigua Casa Consistorial) with a beautiful patterned Moorish wooden ceiling.
Setenil's major festival is the festival of its patron saint, Sebastian, on January 20. It celebrates Carnaval with every other village in February, prior to Lent. Its annual feria takes place in the first week of August.
Information about Setenil de las Bodegas:
www.cadizturismo.com/municipi...
turismodesetenil.com/
www.guiadecadiz.com/es/turism...
www.jeandar.net
Music: Jean Dar - En los Sueños
Album: Uma Vida uma História
www.jeandar.com