Historical Complex · Zahara (EN)

Zahara has been declared a Historic-Artistic Site since 1983, justified by its rich past, which is evident in its monuments, in the urban fabric of its streets with its traditional houses, in its history and its cultural heritage. In addition to its beautiful whitewashed streets, flowery balconies and magnificent viewpoints. The town of Zahara, presents a popular typology, the location along a sloping hillside, has configured Zahara, today, of a peculiar urban framework, product of the irregularities of the terrain. A terrain that forces the streets to be staggered, in such a way that walking between them, either closes the view or become wide viewpoints. Zahara still has a wide mosaic of the characteristic traditional houses of the Cadiz mountains: composed of two floors, irregular and wide walls, whitewashed facades. But, nevertheless, there are two types of houses: those with small windows and doors and simple ironwork, which would correspond to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the representatives of the two later centuries, which come to introduce a third body with circular holes, decorate their facades with frames for the window openings and can even introduce shield on the cover. There are in Zahara a series of natural fountains scattered around the town, in those places where the hollows allow the exit of fresh water from the mountain aquifers. These are: the Fuente de la Higuera (on the road to Paseo de la Fuente), El Pilar (at the entrance of the village, on the road coming from Algodonales), and at the exit, on the road leading to Arroyomolinos, the Fuente de la Calera, and on the road leading to Grazalema, the Fuente del Altabacar.