Andalusia's most dramatic white village — a castle above a turquoise reservoir
Zahara de la Sierra is one of the Pueblos Blancos (white villages) of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park in Cadiz province — a cluster of whitewashed houses cascading down a sheer rock face above a brilliant turquoise reservoir, crowned by a 13th-century Nasrid castle. It is arguably the most visually arresting of all Andalusia's white villages, best seen from the road that descends from the Zahara-Grazalema pass in late afternoon light. The reservoir below the village is good for kayaking, and the old town's tapas bars and posadas fill with hikers doing the Grazalema circuit.
Zahara de la Sierra was one of the most fiercely contested frontier fortresses between the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and the Crown of Castile — the town changed hands multiple times in the 14th and 15th centuries, and its capture by the Nasrids in 1481 is considered one of the triggering events of the final Castilian campaign to conquer Granada. The Nasrid tower that still stands above the village was built in the 13th century; the Christian church and castle walls were added after Ferdinand and Isabella permanently reconquered the town in 1483, just nine years before the fall of Granada.