Vernacular architecture in medieval village of Alquézar in the foothills of the Pyrenees in Aragon, Spain.
Alquézar, Huesca province, Aragon, Spain: a medieval village with little more than 300 inhabitants in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Narrow cobbled streets wind up to a Moorish citadel, set on a rocky outcrop and surmounted by a church, the collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor. Alquézar lies in the Somontano de Barbastro region and within the Sierra y Cañones de Guara Natural Park, alongside the River Vero and at the foot of the Balcez and Olsón mountains. The village takes its name from a castle or ‘al-qasr’ (the Moorish word for fortress) that was built by the Moors in the 800s CE to defend the nearby city of Barbastro (south of Alquézar) from Carolingian Christians who occupied the county of Sobrabe (north of Alquézar). However, Alquézar was conquered by Christians in the 1000s and the Moorish fortress was modified by the Kings of Aragón. King Sancho Ramírez ( - 1094) installed a military garrison and a religious community and the first church on the castle site was consecrated in 1099. The present collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor was built on the castle site in the 1500s, but retained a cloister with Romanesque capitals from the earlier church. Alquézar has ancient crenellated / battlemented walls and close-packed traditional houses with loggias (‘logia’ in Spanish), arcades, balconies, pantile roofs and distinctive chimneys with tiled ‘hats’ or chimney cowls.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Alquézar, Huesca province, Aragon, Spain
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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