Antequera along the road from Malacca to Cordoba makes a stop with its historic buildings. 25 churches and monasteries are found here in which monks and nuns still live today isolated from the world. Despite this, most of the churches can be visited. The biggest part of the more than thousand year old city is built on a fertile plain. Only its old town is hilly and terraced. There are many slopes and stairs and Antequera can be conquered only step by step. Most of the area of the ancient moor fortress has been landscaped and some residential houses have also been built here, not very beautiful but they provide a good view. The remaining castle walls surround two churches and a separate bastion. This square belfry is the Torre de Papa --. Tourists particularly when photographing can roam among the fountains and ornate facades for hours.
The Iglesia de Carmen literally stands out from the churches on the hilltop on a vantage terrace of the moor fortress. The church from the end of the 16th century is made famous by the decorations of exuberant abundance and – called – by art historians. Its inner space is the work of a local artist, Antonio Primo with altar pieces painted by Jose Medina and Diego Marquez in the 1700. We can view the city from up here including the gate of giants with the arms of the city and the three aisled three fold blind arched gable of the 16th century Sta. Maria La Mayor with small towers adorned with tympanums. Further away our eyes fall on the lover’s leap from where the youngsters of the local Romeo and Juliet story, the rich moor girl and her Christian lover leaped into the deep together to unite in death. Such local legends can be heard in every corner of the world.
Places like these set the imagination free. History is not only a sober school lesson but perceptible reality. The words of Roland Mischka of Antequera, the excellent German journalist and author of numerous books and articles on Spain. After seeing the old town under monumental protection, we can take trip to the nature reserve of El Torcal, 16km away. This is a rock labyrinth of 20 square meters. Nature has created an almost surrealistic land here, 1300m high on the side of Serra Pelada. Mystic stone structures and dolmans are found at the edge of the city. Cuevas is the most significant memorial of Iberian megalithic culture that is mentioned together with Stonehenge and the Maltese stone churches or the recently discovered German gussets. Everything relating to these structures is kept secret. We don’t know who built them or when or why, a 25m long 3m high corridor leads to a hall that supposedly used to be a burial fault. The wall system consists of 27 accurately aligned huge blocks of stones. Some of the blocks are around 170 tons and their total weight exceeds 1600 tons. The Cueva de Viena and the Cueva del Romeral 4km away were discovered in 1645 and have been declared national monuments.