Traditional Cities & Villages of Andalucia

The inland areas of Andalucia, in southern Spain cover huge stretches of countryside and land, often unseen and untouched by tourists, who normally prefer to flock to the beaches and bars of the Mediterranean coast. Increasingly though, many tourists and foreign buyers are heading for what they see as ‘real’ Spain; traditional white-washed villages of Andalucia, steeped in history and culture.

In Andalucia, such villages include Casares, Ojen, Istan, Comares, Ronda, Canillas and Competa. Access is often via steep winding roads cut into the mountainside, with spectacular (and hair-raising!) views. There are more than one hundred such villages dotted around Andalucia alone, each having their own customs, festivals, speciality food, and even accents. Manilva for example, is a large southern district of Andalucia, covering an inland village and a coastal stretch of around 10 km, including  La Duquesa and the beaches of Sabinillas.

Other Andalucian countryside villages have their own attractions. Ronda (in reality more of a town than a village) boasts an extraordinarily spectacular Moorish bridge. Ojen has a famous wine museum, Casares lays claim to a Moorish castle.

Further north, in the Cordoba region, villages like Baena and Montilla are highly regarded for their production of olive oil - it is a little known fact that Spain as a whole is a bigger olive oil producer than Italy, accounting for 40% of world production.

With local authorities looking to exploit the tourism potential, many inland villages of Spain are now becoming better connected to the coast with faster and more modern road networks. There is a danger of course that increasing ease of access could degrade the rural charm of these unspoilt inland areas of Andalucia.