Loja, the city that historically has determined the interior communication between Granada and Malaga, is the head of the Western County, due to its millenarian history and great monumental wealth, as much as by its number of inhabitants and the great territorial extension of its district.
It is located in the narrow and delicious valley that the Genil river forms when opening it pass between the Gorda Mountain range and Monte Hacho, it conserves abundant archaeological vestiges of the Bronze Age and Muslim time, among which appear the rests of its medieval fortress and the fortified enclosure that surrounded its old Arabic-Andalusian medina.
A historian of that time described thus Loja: "It is rustic and colourful, being constructed in the skirt of an arid mountain. The ruins of an Arab fortress crown a rocky knoll that arises in the city centre. The Genil river bathes its foot... ".
It can be understood why Loja was “gate and key of the Granada’s kingdom” for the Catholic Kings. The Arab name of Loja, Medina Lauxa ("the Guardian City "), talks of its enormous strategic importance and the important military role played during the Christian conquest of the Kingdom of Granada. Of the love that Fernando and Isabel had to it after its fall, occurred in 1486 after three days of siege, it speaks clearly the coat of arms that the King of Aragon commanded to grant it: a gold castle over a silver bridge with the enrolled legend of "flower between thorns".
The water filtered in the Loja Mountain range, to the margin of the channel of the Genil, makes bring forth numerous springs in centennial fountains, always cool. The abundance of water is also noticed in the spectacular place of Los Infiernos, with its deep gorge and always green cascades.
Loja has numerous tourist attractions. Aside from its historical and monumental patrimony, the Loja Mountain range offers routes and footpaths by rustic and surprising landscapes, like the Charco del Negro. Its surrounding area has as well suitable conditions for the practice of the free fall, having an ideal point of takeoff in the Station of Freefall of Loja, whereas it has the landing area in the plains of the Venta del Rayo as a suitable space.
According to the myth, it would have been founded by the grandson of Noah, Túbal, with the name of Alfeia. The fact is that the Phoenicians, who called it Tricolia, gave it its commercial height towards the VIII century before Christ. The Romans of Cneo Escipión changed their name of Tricolia by the one of Lascivis (place of many waters and delights); and the Arabs transformed this one into Medina Lawsa. They were indeed the Muslims who gave it true urban dimension; it occupied outstanding place in the civil wars of the Caliphate of Cordoba and later acquired a military noticeable character, with the function to guard the Fertile plain that precedes the Nasrid kingdom.
Fernando the Catholic besieged it in 1482, but in vain; surrounded again in 1486, he finally obtained its capitulation, event that had a great psychological echo in the advance of the conquest. More than 5,000 Muslims left the city going to Granada; the fall of this one and all the Nasrid kingdom was ready, and thus the anonymous romanceros wrote it with joy.
Of the dense historical past inherited by the inhabitants of Loja, three passages must at least be remembered: the death of the famous Doncel de Sigüenza in one on the Christian attempts to conquer the place in the war against the Nasrid kings of Granada; the birth in the district of the called “Espadón de Loja”, general Narváez, prime minister of the government of Isabel II, whose familiar house-palace and his mausoleum can be visited; and finally, the historical importance of the polygraph Ibn Al-Jatib, geographer, historian and poet, considered as one of the summit figures of Arabic-Andalusian Literature, who was born in Loja in 1313 and died assassinated in Morocco in 1374, after having been twice vizier of the Nasrid Court and to have been forced to exile in both occasions because of the continuous internal fights.
Loja, which already was presented by al-Idrisi as an important communication centre, has known to maintain and to take care of a good amount of uses and traditions. It would be necessary to emphasize those of gastronomically order: sobreusa of habas, remojón of orange, porra, gazpacho and famous twisted rolls and huesos de santo. The popular cuisine and the more elaborated cuisine arts coexist in the gastronomically supply of Loja. It is necessary to indicate the importance of the trout that has its particular paradise in Riofrío link with the recent commercialization of the sturgeon and its caviar of beluga quality.
Loja Tourist Pass
The Loja Municipal Tourist Board has made a Tourist Pass available to visitors ofthe city which includes entrance to these three centres: the Municipal HistoryMuseum of the Castle, the Historic Interpretation Centre and the Environmental Interpretation Centre of Riofrio. It can be purchased in the head office of theMunicipal Tourist Board or in any of the three places to be visited.
Price: 3.50 €
Patronato Municipal de Turismo de Loja.
Edificio Espacio Joven. C/ Comedias, s/n.
© Patronato Provincial de Turismo de Granada I Diputación de Granada
