Algarinejo is located in the Montes Occidentales and it is based on the skirt of the Cerro del Calvario. It owes its present name to the Arab word al-Garín (the Caves). It is a town of farmers, where most of its citizens have as main means of subsistence the exploitation of the olive groves. A great part of its population lives in rural means. The whole town, due to its geographic location and its way of life, has good characteristics for the rural and interior tourism. In some areas, artisan activities like the homemade cheese production, the conserves and the salted fish can still be observed. As well as manufactures like albardonería, the wicker work, esparto or embroiders and mantillas.

Algarinejo has a village attached: Fuentes de Cesna. It is located to the southwest of the town, in an area surrounded by hills and ravines. Its origin is remote and there are news that in the XV century it was a town of importance where the Arabs dedicated to the jewel commerce inhabited. In 1940, the old town, known as Las Fuentes Viejas, suffered a great rain storm. They were rock loosenings that caused numerous victims and the town was practically destroyed.

History

In the Antiquity, Algarinejo was a Roman settlement. It has been demonstrated by a recent excavation of a discovered archaeological site in a place of the Constitucion Avenue. There, rests of walls and pavements of an Iberian-Roman period construction appeared, as well as several burials s corresponding to a cemetery whose chronology still has not been dated with exactitude.

Its origin goes back to the existence of caves that served like occasional refuge to shepherds of the area and which they were known as al-Garín. It has an obvious Arabic-Andalusian past and these caves were mentioned by Alfonso XI in the "Book of the Montería". After the Christian conquest, Algarinejo was put under the Council of Loja law. Later, it was sold by Felipe III to Don Luis de Lisón and Biedma in 1614, granting to it the title of villa in 1687.

Gastronomy

Algarinejo conserves in its gastronomy the influences of the Arab cuisine that is reflected in its elaborated products and its popular creations. It is land of dry cultivations where chick-peas, cereals and an excellent extra virgin olive oil are cultivated. Its citizens face the winter with strong stews like the chick-peas stew, and the summer with ajoblanco or the fresh porra. The soup of courgettes with noodles and the barbo with green sauce stand out. In pastry making, the twisted rolls and palotes, strips of flour kneaded with cinnamon, sugar, egg, and milk, later fried, are characteristic. Among its more typical recipes the fig bread stands out.

Museums and monuments

- Cesna castle: The Cesna castle rises over a hill that borders with the Iznájar reservoir. We found names in its history like the one of Abderramán I, who lived there before he conquered Cordoba, or Abderramán III, that destroyed it partially. Its origin is previous to the Muslim period. By the disposition of its plant, almost in a square shape, it is believed that it is built over another previous castle in Byzantine style. Some towers are still visible and two of them are in a quite good state of conservation. Of the walls only 10 meters in its South side are conserved. It was declared Site of Cultural Interest.

- Church of Santa María La Mayor: This temple is located in the town centre and dates from the end of the XVIII century. It has three sections with its corresponding chapels, sacristy and tower, and is made in its totality with stonecutting stone. It was built over the foundations of a previous temple that had gone to ruin. The central section is divided from the laterals by arcs supported on heavy quadrilateral columns and conserves rich and interesting neoclassic altarpieces. An artistic iron fence, already disappeared, closed the presbytery of the main altar.

- Hermitage of Santo Cristo: It was built in the XVIII century, in the place where it concluded the Via Crucis that, starting off at the parochial temple, distributed its other thirteen stops through the outskirts of the town until arriving at the sanctuary. A picture of the Saint Sepulchre is kept in its interior, corresponding to the last stop, which was object of great devotion in the entire town. In the last century, with the hermitage almost in ruins, it was restored, and the restoration was paid by two citizens of the town.

- Pesquera Tower: The Pesquera castle, known as Pesquera Tower, is a complex defensive structure, to which it is accessed by the road that goes from Zagra to Fuentes de Cesna. The fortress is built over a promontory that goes forward to the Pesquera river, near its confluence with the Genil. In the highest part a great semicircular tower rises, on whose South face another rectangular tower leans and some pieces of wall are attached. Due to the rests kept it is possible to consider it as a small castle that defended a population centre at the same time that watched the river. There are written references of the XIII century about inhabitants in Pesquera, and in the XV century, during the 1439 truce, it was mentioned, next to Cesna, among the places already conquered by the Castilians.