Priego de Cordoba is the nearest town from our village of Fuente Tojar. It is nearest in distance as the crow flies but is only accessible via a zig-zag road through the local hills; a road that is difficult for huge trucks to access easily.

This is being rectified by a new, straighter road that is still unfinished after two and half years since the first incisions in the local countryside were made.

Priego has an imposing castle that has been having some much needed restoration that is gradually making it more interesting than merely a pile of bricks, which it pretty much was when we first arrived here six years ago. It is part of a drive to attract more tourists to what is, admittedly, a rather quaint town.

The town has been around since around the late 700’s when it was a Moorish base for troops and cavalry. This part of its history is often mentioned in passing by modern Priegoans as if being founded by a Muslim Government is somehow a teeny bit embarrassing.

Priego has an impressive range of churches and chapels that join together at Easter to participate in the week long festival of marches whereby the statue of the relevant patron saint of the church is paraded around the town to the joy and exultation of huge crowds of people and tourists. They’re one of the reasons for the fame of the town.

The ‘balcony’ of Priego is a rather stunning piece of town-scape that overlooks vast lands of olive plantations and allotments and even a couple of small villages. The Adarve, as it is known, is a tourist hotspot all of its own and a great place for a perambulation at any time of the year.

Whereas the wealth of the town used to be from the textile industry (eventually being usurped by Catalonia) nowadays much of the industry derives from the production of olive oil and the brands from Priego are much sought after by aficionados.

Priego is still one of those towns that you can walk around and has many pedestrianised streets. It can be a pain to drive through but that is, literally, the point. It’s easier to park and walk. And nicer.

The population of Priego has been steadily hovering around the 21,000 mark for a few decades with a slight majority in favour of females. The town does, however, have the unique statistic of having more abogados (lawyers) per unit of population than any other town in Spain. The reason given is land disputes – much of the olive growing land around the town was owned by relatively few people who rented it out to people from the local villages including ours. This became an issue during the short-lived republics when the landed gentry were forced to hand over some of their land to the plebs.

There’s a lot of money in Priego but it has tended to be concentrated in the few hands of landowners who have lavished their gains on parks and landmarks and the building of beautiful fountains to show their generous spirit.

The feality of Priego during the Civil War is never talked about. This is perfectly normal in Spain. However, since one of its most famous sons was the leader of the Second Republic you can probably guess which side it was on. Reprisals against the local populations by Franco’s men were said to be vicious.

Luna helped with the photos.