Between hills of red soil and planted olive trees, Güevéjar symbolizes the resistance of a town to history and the misfortunes of nature. The instability of the land on which it was based caused the destruction of great part of the houses in the “earthquake of Lisbon in 1755” first and in the “Arenas del Rey earthquake”, in Christmas of 1884 later. This last one opened cracks of such dimension in the land that advised against the reconstruction of Güevéjar and caused the transfer of the settlement to its present location, on a more secure ground. The remains of the old settlement can still be seen on the base of the so called Peña de Bartolo.
Now, this town is nailed in the last peak of the Yedra Mountain range, oriented towards the Granada’s Fertile plain, and only 10 kilometres away from the capital, in an area in which the karstic caves are abundant. The town forms part of the Route of the Caliphate, one of the footpaths of the Legado Andalusi that links the cities of Cordoba and Granada through their lands and those of Jaén.
Logically, the layout of the new town responds to the prevailing city-planning criteria of the end of the XIX century, with rectilinear streets and perpendicular crossings that have their reference point in the Plaza de la Constitucion, a wide and wooded space where the City council and the parochial church are located.
This territory was occupied from ancient times, as it testifies the discovery of the end of an arrow from the VIII-VII centuries b.C. and a Roman piece of mosaic of the II century that is conserved in the Archaeological Museum of Granada.
The villa is identified before the arrival of the Muslims with the place called Ubexar. At Nasrid time, Güevéjar is mentioned by Ibn al-Jatib as Wabasar. In 1569 the villa was left almost empty when its Moorish population rebelled against the Pragmatic Law of Felipe II, and he forces its inhabitants to leave the Muslim beliefs and customs. It was repopulated in 1571.
The products of the Mediterranean triad - the bread, wine and oil - are of remarkable quality in Güevéjar, that it also has right fame by the elaboration of its homemade sausages, the slaughter of the pig being made in private houses. Their main traditional dishes are hot gachas, choto al ajillo, the lamb a la caldereta and migas with melon of the area. Within the desserts, the twisted rolls, the fried milk and the borrachuelos stand out.
© Patronato Provincial de Turismo de Granada I Diputación de Granada
