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The Route of the Caliphate
Introduction
Major Cultural Route of the Council of
Europe
Gran Itinerario Cultural del Consejo
de Europa
The Legacy of al-Andalus’s Route of the Caliphate unites the cities of Cordoba and Granada, crossing along the way part of the province of Jaen. The itinerary runs through beautiful, fertile farmland and includes numerous towns and villages with a rich artistic and monumental patrimony, and locations which were witnesses to the relationships—in peace and war—between the Muslim and Christian kingdoms.
The route links many fortified settlements, castles, and fortresses, most of them strategically placed on steep mountainsides, part of them Moorish, another part Christian. The traveller can also admire the dramatic mountainscapes of Cordoba’s Subbetic Mountains Natural Park. Here we find steep cliffs and canyons, along with green pastures and river bottoms ideal for tranquil walks along ancient trails.
This
road which joins the Caliphal and Nazrid capitals of al-Andalus,
Cordoba and Granada, was one of the most travelled of the Iberian
Peninsula during the Middle Ages. It was used by merchants from all
over the known world, who traded with both of these important
cities. At the same time it was the path of knowledge, science and
the arts.
Cordoba was the wisdom capital of the Muslim West during the period of the Caliphate, and one of the most advanced cities of its time. According to the writer CH. E. Dufourq: "Neither Rome nor Paris, the most populous cities of the medieval Christian West, ever came even close to the spendor of Cordoba, the largest city of medieval Europe."
With
this rich historical baggage, the Route of the Caliphate is designed
to strengthen the nexus between the three provinces which it crosses
-Cordoba, Jaen and Granada- and to act as a motor for the
development of the towns and regions along its path. The final
destination of this Route is the Nazrid capital, Granada, with its
Alhambra, the most precious jewel of Hispano-Muslim architecture.
The settlements of
different civilizations, and its remote antiquity, confer upon
Granada the character of a cultural melting pot, a character which
is perceived in the many monuments of different historic periods.
The
refined spirit of al-Andalus, evident in the architectural details
and gardens of the era, the language of the stones of the
Renaissance monuments, and the apparent fragility of the late
Isabeline Gothic in Spain, the ‘gótico flamígero,’ create a
polyhedric space which never fails to capitivate visitors.
