Cáñar: the GR 7

The architect Donald Gray spent most of his working life living in a small village in the Alpujarra. He devoted himself to recovering and defending traditional Andalusian architecture, working alongside local builders to learn skills that were not taught in any university. I carry images in my head of the drawings he made for his four slim volumes on the vernacular architecture of the Alpujarra, so every time we walk through the central plaza here in Cáñar, I see it both as Donald Grey saw it 25 years ago and also as it appears today. I wish the tree between the church and the fountain were still alive! Gray’s comment holds true, though: “Cáñar has one of the most pleasant squares, free of modern atrocities and with a beautiful fountain at the center of the square, which is not frequent in the Alpujarra.” (Most of them are built against walls.)

The central square also has a prominent GR 7 sign, so today we followed its arrows toward the village of Soportujar. My phone had a humorous take on that name when I dictated it for the caption of a photo of the village. The text came up as “so poor too hard”. We had a good laugh since some parts of the track were indeed poor and hard. On the way back, we met an Irish-Australian couple who gave us a lot of good advice on which portions of the GR 7 are well maintained. They live down near the coast, but they said they come up to Cáñar frequently because they get their drinking water from the fountains here.

We have an amazing opportunity coming up this evening. We’ve been invited to attend the final rehearsal for a series of upcoming concerts taking place in local villages featuring works by Vivaldi and Pergolesi. They’ll be rehearsing in the church, so not only will we hear the music, but we’ll have the chance to see, in Grey’s words, “its coffered ceiling, a roofing system inherited from the Moors, although constructed after the reconquest.”Læs mere