A Visit to Priego de Cordoba

Andalusia or Andalucía?

The autonomous region of Andalusia (Andalucía in Spanish) is in the southern part of Spain. It spans from Atlantic coast in the west to the sheltered coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the east and from Málaga's Costa del Sol to the borders of Castilla – La Mancha the famous flat lands and Don Quixote windmill country. With an average of 300 plus days of sunshine a year the coastal area is an all year round destination. Not so in the inland provinces of Cordoba, Jaen and Sevilla which ha ve baking hot summers that can reach +40c and cold winters which can be 0c or less overnight. The Mezquita, Córdoba Andalusia is divided into eight provinces, each with a provincial city of the same name. Some of them are far more famous than others: Almería , Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Sevilla. The three land-locked provinces are Córdoba, Jaé n and Sevilla, the rest are coastal. Each province and city is full of culture, history, traditions, fabulous monuments and cre...

It wasn't my first visit to Priego de Cordoba, but the first decision-made trip. I accidently came across it years ago on a long (wrong) way home from Malaga airport. I'd picked up some friends and with a lack of concentration and a lot of chatter I veered off route. We stopped in Priego for lunch and I made a mental note to return one day.

That day finally came a few weeks back, with the glorious, dry, warm winter we've had Sunday explorations have become the norm so we (read I) decided it was time to revisit the 'Wedding Cake' town as one of our visitors to Casa El Reguelo called it.

I realised why it had been so named as we approached from a new angle. The white houses sit neatly on a rocky outcrop around which the long balcony stretches.

Once voted by users of Tripadvisor as one of the 15 most beautiful towns in Spain. There are many, many of those. It is a lovely town surrounded by the Sierras Subbeticas national park and with a long history.

The balcony with gorgeous metal railings and street lights winds around the edge of the medievalBarrio de la Villa the old part of town with far-reaching views on one side and a maze of narrow streets on the other.