Comares - Malaga - La Axarquia

The municipality of Comares forms part of the comarca (region) de la Axarquia, bordering the Montes de Málaga, is 28 kilometres from the capital of the province and 24 from Vélez Málaga. The town is almost 700 metres above the sea level. The average rainfall in the area is 580 l/m2 and the average temperature does not exceed 17 º C.

Comares is a small town that stands on a cliff which dominates to the north the Periana Corridor and part of the mountains of the Axarquia, and to the south a great extension that covers the valley of Vélez and Sierra Tejeda. The main wealth of Comares comes from oil and wine production and harvesting of almonds, and is a necessary stop on the ‘ruta del aceite’, of wine and of raisins.

The origin of the name Comares comes from the Arabic words Qumaris or Hins Comarix, which mean ‘Castle on the heights.’

Because of its strategic location at the top of a mountain that dominates much of the Axarquia, its origins are linked to a remote past with prehistoric roots.

Surely Comares is also known to be a settlement of the Iberian peoples and later the subject of Roman colonization.

In Nazari texts the name Comares is quoted as ‘Hisn Qumarich’  (the Castle of Comares).
Comares was one of the main defensive bastions of the muladi rebellion of Omar Ben Hafsún until Rahman III intervened at the beginning of the 10th century. Some authors have written of, on the nearby mesa of Mazmúllar or Masmullar, the fortress city of Bobastro, although it is surely a settlement in the Mesas de Villaverde, between the present towns of Alora and Ardales.

Comares was at the head of a group known as ‘Las Quatro Villas’: El Borge, Almáchar, Moclinejo and Cútar, all of which were under the protection of Comares Castle (XI century).
Shortly after the fall of Vélez Málaga into Christian hands, Mohamed El Jabis, the last Muslim warden of Comares paid allegiance to the Catholic Monarchs in order to avoid reprisals from the war and in an attempt to preserve some rights for the Muslim population. The life of the Moors, although in Comares they enjoyed more advantages than in other villages of the Axarquia, would not have been easy, as evidenced by the gradual abandonment of the farms to the extent that, according to the chronicles, in 1490 were repopulated by Old Christians who came from Extremadura, other parts of Andalucía, Valencia and even Portugal and Galicia.

In 1512 the Villa formed part of the Marquesado de Comares, which was held by Don Diego Fernandez de Cordoba.

Although during the most widespread uprisings staged by the Moors of Axarquia in 1568 and 1569 the inhabitants of Comares not have any direct intervention, the expulsions that occurred in 1570 as a result of these events affected all the Moorish settlers in the territory for many centuries.

Monuments

Castle Bastion ‘LaTahoma’
Arcos
Comares Castle
Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Encarnacion (Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation)
Meseta de Mazmúllar
Algibe de  Mazmúllar (water cistern)

Directions

To get to Comares from the city of Málaga, you take the old road to Colmenar, A-6103, to the Puerto del León (960 m). Immediately afterwards you take the MA-166, which then becomes the MA-165, to Comares. The landscape through which travels this route is superb.

The other route via the Autovia del Mediterraneo, from which we must take the A-335 towards Vélez-Alhama de Granada. At the heights of Trapiche turn onto the MA-145 and, after Benamargosa, follow the MA-169, stay on the MA-169, which leads directly to Comares.

Distances