Setenil de las Bodegas (Living Under a Rock), Spain

Setenil de las Bodegas is a town (pueblo) and municipality in the province of Cádiz, Spain, famous for its dwellings built into rock overhangs above the Río Guadalporcún. According to the 2005 census, the city has a population of 3,016 inhabitants.

This small town is located 157 kilometers (98 miles) northeast of Cádiz and 20,000km directly through the Earth from Auckland, New Zealand (its antipode) . It has a distinctive setting along a narrow river gorge. The town extends along the course of the Rio Trejo with some houses being built into the rock walls of the gorge itself, created by enlarging natural caves or overhangs and adding an external wall. Setenil has a reputation for its meat products, particularly chorizo sausage and cerdo (pork) from pigs bred in the surrounding hills. As well as meat, it has a reputation for producing fine pasteles (pastries), and its bars and restaurants are among the best in the region. Its outlying farms also provide Ronda and other local towns with much of their fruit and vegetables.

Believe it or not, people chose to settle here for practical reasons. The natural caves of Setenil turned out to be ideal living quarters because rather than needing to build entire houses to keep out the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter, all they needed to build was a facade. It is believed people have been living here since pre-historic times.

The town’s name ‘Setenil de las bodegas’ reflects its rich history; setenil, from the latin words septem nihil  “seven times no”, refers to the seven times the Catholic rulers tried to take back the territory from the Moors, the medieval arabian inhabitants who ruled much of Spain for several centuries. Only on the seventh attempt to conquer Setenil were the Catholics able to win the territory one of the last Muslim strongholds in Iberia. ‘Solid as a rock’ Setenil (unavoidable pun) later began using the cool areas under the rock to store all kinds of local produce in large storerooms, which is how the town earned the second part of the name, “bodegas“, meaning ‘warehouse’ in Spanish.

Most amazingly, one large overhang covers an entire block of white houses, providing shade and natural cooling during warm summers in southern Spain. Even more remarkable are homes built on top of the overhang, giving the town layers of houses separated by natural rock formation. On a walk through the town, the cliffs and homes work together so naturally, it is difficult to see whether the town formed around the boulders, and vice versa.