The balcony of the Axarquía — a Moorish village on a rock above the Málaga hills
Comares is one of the most extraordinarily positioned villages in Andalusia — a Moorish hilltop settlement perched on a isolated rock (El Peñón de Comares) at 739 metres above the Axarquía valley, with panoramic 360-degree views of the surrounding mountain ranges and, on clear days, the Mediterranean coastline beyond Málaga. The village cemetery occupies the outside edge of the rock and is one of the most dramatic burial grounds in Spain. Comares has about 1,200 inhabitants and receives almost no mass tourism despite being 45 minutes from Málaga airport.
Comares served as the residence of the Moorish king of Málaga (the Taifa of Málaga) in the 11th century — the fortress here was the seat of Yahya ibn Ismail, whose court was known for its poetry and culture. The village was reconquered by Catholic monarchs in 1485 and the entire Moorish population expelled after the 1569 Morisco Rebellion that also convulsed nearby Frigiliana. The original castle walls (11th century) and the layout of the old Moorish quarter survive, though the village remained almost entirely unknown to tourism until the 2000s.