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Andalusia is where all Spain’s stereotypes meet. Bullfighters, beaches, flamenco, white villages, cave houses, festive fiestas, religious processions, tapas and sherry are all here in abundance. Each is part of a larger whole, which includes great art and architecture, nature reserves and an easy-going way of life.
Andalusia is also Spain’s most varied region. It offers dramatic desert scenery at Tabernas, water sports and world class golf on the Costa del Sol, skiing in the Sierra Nevada and sherry tasting in Jerez. Of the many nature reserves, the vast, watery Donana teems with birdlife, while Cazorla is a rugged limestone massif. Granada and Cordoba are unmissable for their Moorish heritage; Ubeda and Baeza are Renaissance gems; and Ronda is one of dozens of superb white villages.
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The eight provinces of Andalusia stretch across southern Spain from the deserts of Almeria to the Portuguese border. The highest peaks on the Spanish mainland are in Andalusia’s Sierra Nevada.
Successive invaders left their mark on Andalusia. The Romans built cities, called Baetica, among them Cordoba, and the well-preserved Italica near Seville. It was in Andalusia that the Moors lingered longest and left their greatest buildings – Cordoba’s Mezquita and the splendid palace of the Alhambra in Granada. Inevitably, perhaps the most visited places are the great cities and the relaxed Costa del Sol, with Gibraltar, a geographical and historical oddity, at its western end. |
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