Pizarra

Discover our environment

What can you find in the surrounding area?

Pizarra is the entrance to the Sierra de las Nieves (Biosphere Reserve), being the district of Zalea the one that receives or says goodbye to the visitors who come and go from it by the A-354 road. It is also crossed by the A-357 Málaga-Campillos or Eje del Guadalhorce road, being our village the connection between the Guadalteba region and ours, linking Pizarra with Campillos and from here to Antequera and Seville. In addition to this road which crosses the municipality, Pizarra is connected to Álora to the north and to Cártama to the south by the old Álora-Málaga regional road.

Cerralba

Next to the main road from Malaga to Campillos, three kilometres from Pizarra, we find a beautiful neighbourhood built at the end of the sixties. Its first settlers, from Las Casillas de Díaz (in the Sierra de Gibralgalia) and Coín, arrived between 1972 and 1973. In its early years it was dependent on the IARA until several years later it passed to the Town Hall of Pizarra.

In Cerralba, as well as strolling through the beautiful streets where you can find a garden at the door of every house, you can visit the Church of Ntra. Sra. de la Rosa, named after the hermitage located in Casapalma, or enjoy a good meal in the restaurant El Poste and a drink in the cafeteria of José Rojas, and relax in one of the parks.

In this neighbourhood we find what is the nerve centre of the Colegio Rural Agrupado Mariana Pineda, where the children from the surrounding area who live in the countryside, those from the Sierra de Gibralgalia (neighbourhood of the town of Cártama) and those from Cerralba study. The Zalea school also depends on this educational centre, and until a few years ago, the La Vega de Santa María school, which is currently closed due to insufficient numbers of children.

The big festival of our Barriada is celebrated in the middle of June, enjoying three days of Fair, which is attended by more and more visitors every year.

Zalea

The village is located 5 km. from Pizarra and is the access to the Sierra de las Nieves. The village was built between 1965-68 and consists of 164 houses and large green areas. Its patron saint is San Isidro Labrador in honour of whom the village festivities are celebrated on the 15th of May with a procession and three days of festivities ending with the Romería which takes place next to the Arroyo de Casarabonela.

It has belonged to the City Council since 24 January 1989, before that it depended on the IARA.

You can stroll through our wide streets, relax in the gardens or in the park, visit the Ostrich Farm, where you can also buy decorated ostrich eggs, go horse riding in Zalea and the surrounding area. We can eat the best homemade food in the Bar Restaurante Florido or have some great tapas in the Peña los Pachecos and finish with a coffee and a drink in the Yugo pub. You can’t leave Zalea without taking or tasting some traditional sausages from our butcher’s shop or some handmade bread of the day from the bakery. To end a day (or several) in our village you can sleep in the Casas Rurales Las Tinajas.

Vega Hipolito

Barriada Hipólito is a small village of about 200 inhabitants located in the fertile lowlands of the Guadalhorce river, about 3 km from the village of Pizarra and about 10 km from Álora.

The industriousness of its inhabitants led the population to progress and grow, especially at the end of the 18th century. This development encountered a major difficulty: the lack of jurisdiction, as it only had jurisdiction over the centre of the town.

The need to expand in terms of crops and pasture for its livestock led to frequent disputes with neighbouring villages, especially with Álora. As early as 1748, there is evidence of a dispute with Alora over the right to graze the cattle of La Pizarra in Alora’s territory. Throughout the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century there were continuous disputes with Álora, Casapalma, Cártama and Casarabonela.

Thus, in 1781 the people of Pizarra demanded a beneficiary from the Parish of Alora for their curato. Similarly, the excessive taxes imposed on the inhabitants of this place for their farming, consumption, business and farms within the jurisdiction of Alora, gave rise to frequent and prolonged litigation, in which Pizarra and its inhabitants showed their independent, tenacious character and defended their rights.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Pizarra had around three hundred residents, governed by a local mayor, an alderman and two deputies, although it lacked ordinary jurisdiction and was subject to the justice system of Álora.

This subjugation caused the villagers to be harassed, both in judicial matters and in the complaints and distribution of taxes, and so on 7 February 1803 they decided to go to King Charles IV requesting the separation of the village of La Pizarra from the jurisdiction of Álora and from any other jurisdiction, as well as the granting of the Royal Privilege of Villazgo and the assignment of the municipal district and jurisdiction.

After a long and difficult lawsuit, in which the people of Pizarra once again demonstrated their tenacity and sacrifices, by Royal Decree of Ferdinand VII, dated 19th January 1818, they were granted the status of Villazgo, although not the jurisdictional term, in the face of opposition from Álora, Casapalma and Málaga.

Faced with this privilege, Álora once again objected and asked for the grace to be withheld. In order to continue these disputes, the inhabitants of Pizarra, with a great spirit of solidarity and sacrifice, requested the imposition of taxes on several occasions. Finally, on 4 April 1821, under the protection of the Constitution of Cadiz and the decree of the Cortes of 23 June 1813, the town was granted the corresponding jurisdictional term, in view of its growing number of inhabitants, which would allow the town to reach its apogee and freedom.

The opposition of the neighbouring villages intensified in the face of the dismemberment of their municipal boundaries, but the reasons of Pizarra were recognised by the Supreme Court of Justice and in 1847 a Royal Decree was obtained granting the municipal boundary.

From this date onwards, the town of Pizarra has progressively prospered and now has a surface area of 64.08 km2 and a population of 6824 inhabitants. It is to be hoped that it will prosper even more rapidly.

As an important historical event after the granting of the Villazgo, we must highlight the celebration in the Palace of the Counts of Puerto Hermoso, on 5 February 1922, of what is known in the world of politics as the CONFERENCE OF PIZARRA (CONFERENCIA DE PIZARRA). To discuss the issues raised by the war in Morocco, the Spanish High Commissioner in Morocco, General Berenguer, Admiral Aznar, the President of the Government, Antonio Maura and several government ministers met at the Palace on the morning of that day to discuss the issues raised by the war in Morocco. The conference was held with great reserve as to what was discussed, studying the submission of El Raisuni and the plans for the Al Hoceima operations, which would later be carried out by General Primo de Rivera.

Yacimientos

Burial Castillejos de Luna, also known as the Cañada del Sordo or Tajo de Luna, consists of two burials with cist tombs, next to which a dagger, an archer’s plate, a Pamela type point, an archer’s plaque and certain ceramic elements were found. On the other hand, the cist burials are more typical of an ancient bronze. We would therefore be in a Bronze Age site but with surviving Chalcolithic elements. It could be dated between the end of the third millennium BC and the beginning of the second.

We know of the existence of two Roman roads that passed through our region, something that is attested to by the discovery of a milestone of the Emperor Maximian in the Abdalajís Valley. However, we do not have any evidence of a paved road. Perhaps the most important is via III, which ran from Malaca to Antikaria through the Guadalhorce Valley. As it was a natural road, it must have been one of the main pre-Roman communications. The discovery of a gold coin, probably Punic, in the vicinity of Álora seems to indicate this.

It should be borne in mind that this is a very fertile and easy area for the layout of communication routes and although, as already mentioned, there are no visible remains of the routes, the archaeological sites show their passage. Among the sites on the left bank of the river, Castillejos de Quintana and La Ahumada stand out. In the latter, tombs and remains of marble columns (now lost) have been found. Along with the remains of constructions, walls, tegulae and the remains of opus signinum floors. Related to the Arroyo de la Ahumada site is the Bañadero de la Reina, which is an opus signinum pool on a rocky hill. And a fragment of a beautifully carved marble cornice found in the Vega de Santa María which probably corresponds to a temple.

Of the sites on the right bank of the Guadalhorce, Cerro de Bobalón stands out. It was Aureliano Fernández Guerra who, in a letter to the famous orientalist from Archidona, Francisco Javier Simonet, suggested that Barbi was in Pizarra. This letter was published as a footnote to Francisco Guillén Robles in his Historia de la Provincia de Málaga. But today we know that he was referring to Singilia Barba, a Roman city near Antequera.

There are also remains from the Mozarabic period in Castillejos de Quintana. This is an acropolis or citadel with its necropolis or cemetery. Although Roman elements have also been found, such as tombs in tegula or a coin from the Malaka mint. It dates from around the 9th and 10th centuries and its character is presumably that of an accessory fortress in the defensive belt of Bobastro. It is a typical Mozarabic habitat.

The Mozarabic site of Castillejos is undoubtedly related to the Mozarabic church that stood on the foundations of the present-day Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de la Fuensanta. This church can be classified as semi-circumstantial, it had a single floor and was apparently cenobitic.

The foundations of two crenellated towers in the Sierra de Gibralmora are preserved from the Arab period. One of them watched over the way into the Guadalhorce Valley, the ancient Roman Via III. The other, known as the tower of the cross or the little donkey, faces towards the Lagares and would have watched over the old Senda del Adelantado, later the royal road from Málaga to Álora.

Once Antequera was conquered in 1410, it became the centre of operations from which numerous expeditions would set out on a series of raids on Muslim territories. And the Senda del Adelantado would be the route used to besiege the Cártama plain.

Also of note is the Cortijo Villalón, which was a Moorish farm, prior to the Christian conquest.

Monumentos

Palace of the Counts of Puerto Hermoso: a modern neo-Mudejar or regional construction from the beginning of the 20th century, built on the foundations and parts of the Manor House built by Diego Romero (15th to 16th century) and his successors, owners of the Mayorazgo de La Pizarra. H.M. King Alfonso XIII spent the night there on 2 May 1921. It was the seat of the Governmental Conference on the Moroccan War in 1922. It is a private home and cannot be visited.

Parish Church of San Pedro Apóstol: it was erected as a suffragan church by the first Bishop of Málaga, Don Pedro Díaz de Toledo, before the year 1499. The current building dates from the 17th century, in the Mudejar style, and it was then that it acquired the title of Parish Church (1652).

Convent of the Sisters of the Cross: former convent of the Dominican Mothers, who abandoned it in 1936. The Company of the Sisters of the Cross was established in 1955, thanks to Pedro de Soto y Domeq, Count of Puerto Hermoso. It was a donation he made to Pizarra before joining the Carthusian Order.

Borriquito Tower: Crenellated tower built with mortar. It dates from the Nasrid period (13th to 15th centuries), and was used to guard the route that connected Álora with Málaga (the old Senda del Adelantado). It is popularly known as El Borriquito.

Monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, this construction crowns the highest peak of the Sierra de Gibralmora, 447 m. above sea level. Since the 16th century, there was a cross, which gave the name to the place of ‘El Santo’, popularly called the Sierra del Santo. In 1921 an image of the Heart of Jesus was placed there, which was destroyed in 1936 and replaced by a new one in 1995. A pilgrimage is held here on 28 February, the day of Andalusia. From here we can see the whole Guadalhorce Valley.

Castillejo de Quintana: Mozarabic archaeological site with Roman elements (acropolis and necropolis), from the defensive circle of Bobastro (9th-10th centuries). Associated with the Hermitage of Ntra. Sra. de la Fuensanta (Old Church. Mozarabic Cenobio).

Bañadero de la Reina: large Roman basin of Opus Signinum, located on a rocky hill. Legend has it that it was used as the Bañadero de la Reina Mora.

Ermita de Ntra. Sra. de la Fuensanta: built between the 16th and 17th centuries on the site of a Mozarabic church. Its current façade is in the neo-Gothic style (19th century). It was one of the Mozarabic semi-Rozarabic churches with a single floor plan. The interior is notable for its Baroque plasterwork.

Bridges of the Guadalhorce River: the Guadalhorce River as a natural site with great ecological value offers us, in addition to beautiful landscapes and a diversity of birdlife, an unequalled architectural heritage along its entire route through the region. In Pizarra, in particular, there are two impressive bridges over this river. The railway line passes over one of them and construction began at the end of the fifties in the 19th century by Ferrocarriles Andaluces, with the inauguration of the Malaga, Alora section of the railway and with it the bridge in 1863. During that century the appearance of the bridge was totally different to the present day, it was an iron bridge, in the style of those still preserved in Álora and Cártama. It was remodelled at the beginning of the 20th century to its present appearance.

The other bridge crosses the road and was built in the first half of the 20th century during the remodelling of the other bridge. It was designed by the engineer Don Ginés de Fe y Pérez and was at the time the largest single span bridge in Spain.

Fauna

Our municipality has a great variety of landscapes, with great contrasts from one place to another, which is why a wide range of animal species have adapted well to the environment. Unfortunately, due to human activity, some of them are decreasing in population.

In the group of mammals we can highlight: Rabbits, hares, foxes, hedgehogs, dormice, wild cat, martens, ibex, etc.

Reptiles include lizards, lizards, salamanders, geckos, snakes, tortoises, etc.

Birds can be grouped into:

It has even been commented by some ornithologists that, due to the mildness of our winter, it is here in the Guadalhorce Valley that they have heard the melodious song of the blackbird in January.

Another important group, although in regression, are the scavengers, such as crows, jackdaws, some sporadic vultures.

Urban: sparrows, starlings.
Hunting: partridges, turtledoves, quails.
Insectivorous and frugivorous, migratory or sedentary: such as robins, bee-eaters, hoopoes, wagtails, wagtails, nightjars, chiffchaffs, bee-eaters, greenfinches, goldfinches, swallows, swifts, blackbirds.

The most abundant birds of prey are kestrels, kites, short-toed, booted and Bonelli’s eagles. It is worth admiring the marvellous spectacle of hundreds of migratory birds of prey such as kites and short-toed eagles passing through our municipality every spring and autumn.

Special mention must be made of the birds that live or spend part of the year in our rivers and streams, and these populations have been growing lately. The most important are the grey herons, egrets, night herons, kingfishers, grebes, stilts, plovers, kingfishers, mallards and the most important, an endangered bird that visits us in autumn and winter, is the majestic black stork. All of them feed on small fish such as barbels, carps, eels, amphibians, etc. which make up the most important fauna of our Guadalhorce River.

The Guadalhorce Valley is also an obligatory stop for migratory birds that spend part of the year in the nearby Fuente de Piedra lagoon, such as the beautiful pink flamingo.

Flora

The municipality of Pizarra has a varied and rich flora, typical of the Mediterranean, with a wide range of wild herbs, trees and shrubs; it has both local and foreign crops that have adapted well to our excellent climate, which is mild and frost-free.

All this variety is explained by the fact that in our municipality there are different types of landscapes, such as mountain ranges, rivers, numerous orchards and meadows, and therefore a multitude of species adapted to each type of terrain and microclimate grow. For all these reasons, here you can enjoy beautiful contrasts in the landscapes, with a great variety of colours in the fields, which are covered with flowers from the first autumn rains until spring. We have classified the slate flora as follows: Mediterranean shrubs and bushes, aromatic and medicinal plants, groves (mountain, riverside and orchard) and typical flowers.