Jerez de los Caballeros

Anyone approaching Jerez de los Caballeros recognises it from afar by its towers. It is no accident that it is known as the town of the four towers: four Baroque bell towers built of brick, plaster and glazed earthenware that gleam above the rooftops and which, together with the rest of its Mudéjar, Gothic and Baroque heritage, earned it designation as a historic-artistic site in 1966.

The most striking is that of San Bartolomé, dating from 1759, stylistically related to Seville's Giralda and covered in colourful ceramic decoration; the church, from the mid-15th century, also boasts a brick and plaster doorway clad in polychrome tiles. San Miguel Arcángel adds a tower from 1749 whose lowest section, from the 16th century, serves as an atrium, while inside there is a lantern dome with a fresco of the Holy Trinity. Completing the quartet are Santa Catalina, with its bell tower of 1762 already showing a Neoclassical air, and Santa María de la Encarnación, the oldest church, where a column still bears the inscription recording its consecration on 25 December 556.

The town's name points to the Templars. Alfonso IX of León conquered it in 1230 with their help and later granted it to the Order of the Knights Templar, which promoted its resettlement and, in the 13th century, built the castle on the site of an earlier Muslim alcazaba, some elements of which still survive, as well as the walls. Of its six gates, the Puerta de Burgos and the Puerta de la Villa remain, and the Order of Santiago also left its mark on the fortress.

But its history goes back much further. The Toriñuelo dolmen, in the Dehesa de la Granja, recalls its prehistoric inhabitants; the Phoenicians called it Ceret and the Romans Fama Iulia Seria, near the Vía de la Plata, leaving behind the mosaics of the Villa del Pomar, the Roman road of the Alto Empedrado and the Pontón and Viejo bridges. From the Muslim period, when it was known as Xerixa or Xeris, the names and layout of neighbourhoods such as the Morería and the Alhóndiga survive, perfect for getting lost in on foot.