Alcalá de la Vega

A hillside village above the gorge

Alcalá de la Vega lies in the Serranía Baja, on the eastern edge of the province. It stands on a slope above the Cabriel gorge, which divides the municipality into two river plains: the streets climb the hillside and, from a distance, the houses look like a staircase of roofs. The cliffs and valley can be seen from the upper streets. Above, on the hill, are the remains of the medieval castle; below, the church and a small stone-built village centre. Winters are those of the mountains.

The castle of the Banu Zennun

At the top, among cliffs, remain the keep, courtyard, walls and cisterns of a castle that Arabic texts call al-Qala or Aqaqla. It was the first fortress of the cora (administrative district) of Santaver, the land of the Banu Zennun, a Berber family that became almost independent of Córdoba in the 9th century. An Arabic chronicle describes a well at the top, descended by one stairway and climbed by another, and doorways cut into the rock. There, in summer 872, Emir Muhammad I met Sulaymán ben Zennun, whom he later made governor of the cora. Visigothic funerary stelae with a Chi-Rho monogram have also been found in the municipality.

It later belonged to the marquisate of Moya, one of its 36 villages. In the 15th-century census it had 109 households, five of them hidalgos (members of the lesser nobility) and three clerics; in 1587 it shared a baptismal font with Algarra.

What trades and memory tell

The patron saint is the Virgen del Remedio, credited with many miracles, and people from surrounding villages such as Campillos-Paravientos make a pilgrimage up to her hermitage in late spring. Village memory retains hemp, grown for many years, the hemp seeds eaten like nougat at Christmas, the pig of San Antón, the gatherings of each year’s conscripts, the communal grain store and the named springs: La Alberca, La Mesta, Los Recueros and Fuente Águeda. The writer Florencio Martínez is from here and has dedicated verses to the «Cabriel dormido» (sleeping Cabriel).

Within the municipality is El Cubillo, a municipality until 1975, when it joined Alcalá de la Vega. Its name remains on the map; its inhabitants left with Depopulation.

Plan your visit

Start in the village centre and take your time climbing to the castle.

Before you travel

The streets are steep and the gorge has cliffs: wear shoes with grip and take care at the edges. The castle is a ruin; ask the town council how to reach it. Frost is frequent in winter.

Combine with

Algarra and Salvacañete are about 8 km away as the crow flies.