This is gently rolling countryside given over mainly to cereal and vegetable crops. The limestone Sierra del Torcal captivates onlookers with its colossal weather-worn rock statues. The built-up landscape, for its part, is laid out in the classic style of Andalusian towns, full of civil and religious buildings that represent a rich cultural heritage dating right back to the Chalcolithic Age with the dolmens of Menga, Romeral and Viera.

A telltale sign of the Arab’s stay in the city is the horseshoe arch in the Puerta de Málaga. There are also fine religious buildings of magnificent workmanship, almost all of them from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, such as the Colegiata de Santa María, the first collegiate church designed in an Andalusian Renaissance style. It has a grandiose main front made entirely from granite ashlar; at its feet lie the Roman public baths.

Civil architecture is also splendidly represented by palaces, ancestral homes and other outstanding buildings such as the Palacio de Nájera, now home to the Museo Municipal. The proudest possession of this museum is the Efebo de Antequera, a bronze statute of a young boy said to date from the first century CE. Other interesting museums for finding out about local culture and traditions are the Museo Conventual de Las Descalzas, the  Museo de Usos y Costumbres San Benito and the Museo del Aceite, which gives a good account of the region’s olive-growing tradition.

To round out our cultural visit we can try out Antequera’s culinary delights, based mainly on the cereals, vegetables and olive oil produced in its surrounding fields. No visitors should leave the town without tasting the typical dishes of ajoblanco (white garlic soup), pimentón (paprika), gazpachuelo (quick soup), migas (croutons) and, of course, mollete, a sort of Arab bread, probably in homage to those who gave this city its Arab name of Medina Antikaria.

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