There are obvious bits of Moorish influence everywhere.
One of our books claimed you could climb this tower, but apparently it was full of crap, because we didna see anybody going up.
The gardens inside the walls are pretty cool.
The entrance!
Inside, you are basically lost in a maze of arab columns, numbering in excess of 850, it is said.
The combination then with later cathedral additions creates for this very odd feel.
You can seriously get lost in this place, trying to figure out where you are.
They've had to do a lot of restoration work here too!
Outside, we wandered around some of the environs of the church. It's mostly tourist stuff here, well away from the rest of the city.
MmmMMm ... oranges!
There are huge old buildings everywhere here.
And a swanky huge fountain. There's a roman bridge here too, but it's completely closed for renovations. D'oh!
We next began driving eastwards. Along the way, on a whim (well, it looked cool from the roadway), we stopped in Jaén.
Turns out they've got a huge castle here. Half is a Parador, and half is an exhibit you can go visit.
It's cheap to get in, and there are these weird audio-visual effects everywhere (including some freaky 3d glasses thing), but it's pretty neat.
It's probably worth pointing out that, as a fortress, this place blows. The Moors built it, the Spanish Christians took it, the French took it and then the Spanish took it back again.
Basically, it appears as though if you want it, it's yours.
Maybe everybody loved the views of the countryside and Jáen down below ....
There are six towers in the main castle complex, and the place has been renovated a number of times.
That's Jaén down below. Pretty sweet, especially on a nice sunny day.
These are the dungeons.
This is the freaky audiovisual display in the dungeon. They took this stuff so seriously, and there was this lady there who really wanted to make sure that everybody took full advantage of them.
That's the parador in the distance there.
You can then walk out to a viewing point (crowned by our Spanish friend Jésus, of whom we neglected to take a photo). The views of Jaén and the surrounding countryside are teh awes0me.
That's the huge cathedral in town down there.
Sweeet.
If you look closely at the mountains in the distance, there's still snow there.
This is a famous palace of some sort.
Far more amusing was the group of pensioner tourists who were on the hill with us, complaining bitterly the whole way about how hot it was, how far of a walk it was, how the view was kinda lousy anyway, and how much their legs hurt. It was right out of a movie or something.
This castle is THE place to get married, it seems. We ran into at least two wedding parties.
Driving through the countryside eastwards, we drove past field after field after field of olive trees. The land was at least 80% used for olive groves. wow.
Those are ALL olive trees out there.
That's the town of Cazorla in the distance there. It's swanky, nestled in the mountains here in the south, surrounded by olive groves, and the gateway to the Parque Natural de Cazorla. We decided to head that way.
The Parque is, in fact, a nature reserve for animals (the only one in Spain, and thus one of the few places that actually has any animals in it), and is basically one long valley between a couple of mountain chains.
There's a cool lookout point at the top entrance to the park.
We drove down into the park and just happened upon this cool hotel that was pretty affordable. Sweet.
We wandered around that evening and saw a tonne of wildlife, including some very rare deer that only exist in this park, various birds, and some farmers' sheep. Cool.