07/04/2014
Arcos de la Frontera is a town in the province of Cádiz in southern Spain. It is located on the eastern bank of the Guadalete river, which flows to the Bay of Cadiz. The town commands a fine vista atop a sandstone ridge, from which the peak of San Cristobal and the Guadalete Valley can be seen. The town gained its name by being the frontier of Spain's 13th century battle with the Moors.
There is local evidence that Stone Age cave-dwellers used rocks to form living chambers. Roman ruins also exist in the area.
Arcos became an independent Moorish taifa in 1011 during the protracted collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba. Arcos was associated with the Jerez by 'Abdun ibn Muhammad who ruled from c. 1029/1030 to 1053. The region was overtaken by the Almoravid dynasty in 1091. From 1145 to 1147 the region of Arcos and Jerez was briefly a taifa under dependency of Granada, led by Abu'l-Qasim Ahyal.
The town was a bulwark of Christianity after Alfonso the Wise of Castile (1252–1284) expelled the Moors. He constructed a Gothic cathedral which remains on its high ridge.
It is famed for its ten bells, which tolled throughout the war with the Moors. Several Moorish banners were taken in the nearby battle of Zahara and have been on display in a church in Arcos since 1483.
Declared a national historic-artistic monument in 1962 in recognition of its exceptional architecture and impressive location, the old town is a tangled labyrinth of cobbled streets that lead up to a sandstone castle, the Castillo de los Arcos. As you’d expect from such a spectacular vantage point, there are exhilarating views over the town and the rolling plain below.
Main sights:
- Castillo de Arcos (15th-century castle)
- Iglesia Parroquial de Santa María de la Asunción, a church built between the 16th and 18th centuries
- Convent of San Agustín (16th-17th centuries)
- Church of San Pedro (16th-18th centuries)
- Ayuntamiento (seventeenth-century city hall)
- Iglesia de San Francisco (church built between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries)
- Iglesia de la Caridad (church built between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries)
- Among the most memorable of Arcos's pretty and often strikingly narrow streets are the alley-like Calle Cuna and Calle Maldonaldo, lined with elegant palacios built by the town's 18th-century nobility and overhung by wrought-iron rejas of windows.
The tourist office is on the Plaza del Cabildo (Mon-Sat 10.00-14.00 and 15.30-19.30, Sun 10.00-14.00).
