Bazais a city with a lot of history known for its archaeological discovery as important as the lady of Baza. This site is from the Iberian era and dates from the 4th century BC.

On my visit, I first went to the main square where I could see the collegiate church and the town hall. A square in which the co-cathedral stands out above all the above.

The Collegiate Church of Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Encarnación, Baza Co-Cathedral or Iglesia Mayor is Renaissance in style, was built in the 16th century and was built on the remains of the Muslim aljama mosque. Initially, it was opened to Christian worship after its sacralization, maintaining its structure as a mosque. In it two large shields stand out, on the column and the doors that give it a certain medieval air. Inside it is in the Gothic style with ribbed arches but they do not have important altarpieces.
Within the city is the archeology museum which is located in the old town hall, in Renaissance style. It has many remains of Iberian sites in the area, as well as Romans and Arabs. The most important thing is related to the lady of Baza for which there is also an interpretation center from where it was extracted on the outskirts of the city (the ancient city of Basti ). Remember that it is a replica since the original is in the Archaeological Museum of Madrid. We also have the royal room with everything related to the title of city that they would gain in the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. This has a very successful Mudejar coffered ceiling.


Other interesting buildings are the fountain of golden pipes, which is an old fountain made in the time of Felipe III with his royal coat of arms, the Arab baths that have been recently restored and are intact and complete. Together with the baths of Jaén and Granada, they are the best preserved in all of Andalusia. This is because they were buried under the old street.



As religious architecture, in addition to the collegiate church, there is the church of San Juan with a Mudejar coffered ceiling that can be seen in the following image. It dates from the 16th century and responds to patterns and characters typical of Mudejar constructions.
Built on top of the mosque that stood in this same place, in the suburb of Argedid, next to the Puerta de Armesto, it was erected a parish in the year 1505 in this neighborhood where ninety percent of the neighborhood was Moorish.



The dressing room of the church of Los Dolores also stands out, which is unrestored and can be seen in the following image and is at high risk of being damaged. It is an authentic jewel above the church that is not open to the public. Another building that is in full restoration is the monastery of San Jerónimo that I also show in the image.



After Baza I went to the site of the lady of Baza. The Ibero-Roman city of Basti: just three kilometers from today's Baza is Cerro Cepero, the site of the Ibero-Roman city of Basti. This was one of the main Iberian fortified cities in the entire country, to the point of giving its name to an extensive region, Bastetania. In it was found in 1971 the well-known Lady of Baza, one of the best examples of Iberian funerary statuary and Iberian art. Then he would shoot towards the province of Almería.

The first town in Almería that I saw was Vélez Rubio. This town's most important claim is a large church, the one of the incarnation that has two large shields on its façade. The largest shields I have ever seen in a church of this type. In addition, the church is huge and has a rather elegant baroque altarpiece. The rest of the church is quite sober. A few kilometers further is its smaller town, Vélez Blanco, which despite being smaller has much more heritage and more charm to be visited. The growth of Vélez Rubio is due to connecting with the highway that connects the central area of Andalusia with the east.
Vélez Blanco is a town that must have been important in the Caliphate era, where there was a mosque and a citadel at the top that defended the town. What remained of the Arab fortress would pass through different hands after the reconquest until it reached the Vélez family, a dominant family throughout Andalusia from the reign of Felipe II. This would build a castle, the Velez castle and make great changes and reforms over the years, coming to make a palace inside with many marble figures and windows with all kinds of details, as well as gargoyles or shields.





The large balcony from which you can observe everything that happens in the town stands out, since the castle is quite high above the lowest level of the town. The courtyard of the castle in the 19th century would be sold to the New York Metropolitan Museum and the palace would be abandoned.



The Junta de Andalucía would buy it and since then it has received several reforms. The last one has secured its access and different panels have been placed with the history of the castle as well as closed and well isolated different rooms. It is currently in the process of undergoing a final reform to achieve a look very similar to the one it had, making replicas of the original courtyard of the one found in New York.
In the town, apart from the castle, there is a church in ruins, the church of Santa María Magdalena, which presumably was the mosque of the citadel and a large church near the Calle Mayor and the town hall. It also has a convent, that of San Luis, which dates from the early seventeenth century and has a rather elaborate façade with coats of arms of the family of the Marquis of Requenses, who is the one who ordered it to be built.

Before reaching my destination and due to the proximity of Cuevas de Almanzora to the city of Lorca, I would decide to stop there.
Lorca belongs to the province of Murcia, so it would have covered 8 provinces on this trip, without having set foot in Huelva or Jaen de Andalucía. Really, where I have focused the trip the most is on Córdoba, Málaga and Almería, although I have visited many important towns in Seville and Granada that I had never visited before.



Since I couldn't park in the center of Lorca, as there are many cars, and almost all parking spaces have to be paid for, I went directly to the castle. This castle is built on the old Arab citadel. Within the vast area of its walls existed a mosque and a synagogue since many Jews inhabited these lands. Today there is the national hostel of Lorca, a modern building with all the comforts isolated from noise and urban traffic.
When you see the castle from the outside, since you arrive around 6:00 p.m., which is when it closes, you walk through the wall and see from above the size of the old town of Lorca compared to the entire new area. They have made a multitude of modern multi-storey buildings on the main street, the N-340, however these buildings do not extend beyond that street from which it seems as if you are in a much larger city. That street is home to major stores and major brands. In the center I started by visiting the collegiate church, a huge building that houses great paintings inside.

Nearby stands out the House of the Corregidor, with a very imposing side shield of the same quality as those found in palaces in Extremadura, from the 16th century, and the craftsman's house with the coat of arms of Carlos V on its facade. The town hall next to the collegiate church and the Plaza Mayor does not leave you indifferent, in Renaissance style with large shields of the Bourbon reign from the early eighteenth century.

The Collegiate Church of San Patricio is a Renaissance-style building and construction began in 1533. The architectural scheme is very similar to that of the Murcia Cathedral since the author is the same, Jerónimo Quijano. Its interior layout has three naves, the central one being the widest, side chapels between the buttresses and radiating chapels in the ambulatory, as well as a bell tower in the ambulatory that houses the Sacristy, and a high transept. In the following image the photograph of that February night.



Walking through its streets you would see one of the best palaces of Castilian architecture from the 16th century, the Palace of Guevara. Inside we can find a reproduction of the old library and pharmacy or apothecary, as well as large paintings on the steps.



Another palace of interest is the Ruano Palace, from the end of the 19th century, in a more classical style that stands out for its imperial stairs and its neo-Nazari style meeting room alluding to the architecture of the Palace of the Alhambra in Granada.

It also highlights the War theater of the mid-nineteenth century. Its interior is decorated with different paintings from that time that gives it a Venetian air.



Religious buildings apart from the collegiate church we find the church of San Pedro, that of San Mateo, that of San Francisco and the church of Santiago. These churches are characterized by tall towers and baroque altarpieces. The one with the largest proportions is that of San Mateo followed by that of San Francisco. In the Lorca earthquake of May 2011 several of the towers would be damaged. In the annex building there is a patio with a reproduction of the cave of Lourdes with the Virgin.

At night I would stay at the Perejil hostel, very close to Cuevas de Almanzora and Águilas.

Day 10, knowing the towns of Almería (CLICK to continue)

March 6, 2022