Setenil de las Bodegas - Spanish Town Carved from Rock

Image Credit Flickr User maesejose

Sometimes it makes sense not to establish a settlement atop a gorge but to mould one’s buildings along it instead.  So it is in Andalucia where the incredible town of Setenil de las Bodegas which has its modern roots in the fifteenth century although there is evidence of habitation for millennia before that.

Image Credit Flickr User Joaoa

People flock to the village because there is, quite simply, nothing else like it in the world.  It looks like something from a fantasy novel – an urban situation of size set within a gigantic gorge.  The dwelling places were created by the excavation of the base of the mountain and the addition of an external wall.

Image Credit Flickr User joaoa

Image Credit Flickr User Joaoa

Image Credit Flickr User Joaoa

Image Credit Flickr User Maesejose

Image Credit Flicker User :)gab(:

Image Credit Flickr User maesejose