Andujar, the oldest pilgrimage in Spain

It has a merciful legend that one night in mid-August, 1227, a bundle of light awakened a shepherd near the hill of Cabezo in the middle of Sierra Morena. From that light broke out the Virgin who asked the shepherd to build a sanctuary at that aside place for the faithful to venerate her. Startled by the apparition shepherd Juan Alonso de Rivas told what happened in Andujar. Three times the Virgin Mary appeared that summer and last healed the shepherd's arm as a proof of his goodness.

Eight hundred years later the celebration takes shape in a pilgrimage that takes place on the night of August 11. But months before, the last weekend in April, Cabezo hill, where stands the sanctuary of the Virgen de la Cabeza, is the site of the oldest pilgrimage in Spain. This dau, just after eleven o'clock, when the image of La Morenita, as She's popularly known, is led by the elder brothers of the fraternity from his dressing room to the litter in which tens of horquilleros wait to stroll it by the roads of the hill.

The city of Andujar is located at the foot of Sierra Morena mountains, west of the Jaen province, Andalucia. Washed by the Guadalquivir River, on which has an impressive Roman bridge, the ancient roman city called "Liturgi" is an attractive city that blends its olive tradition with its relation to the Guadalquivir. Manor houses, modern buildings and houses of traditional architecture make its urban landscape, with monumental buildings like the Church of St. Mary, St. Michael's Church, Church of St. Bartholomew, the Palacio de Cardenas, the tower of the source Deaf, Tavira Tower, City Hall and many others.