Lanjarón: the balneario

By walking out beyond the west end of town this morning, we were able to get a view of the castle and see some of the trailheads we will be using in the next few days. We then worked our way back into town, making a Wikiloc track for the other 12 of the 23 fountains that we didn’t see yesterday, plus various related buildings.

Starting in 1774, the healing properties claimed for the various springs here made Lanjarón famous. Add in the thermal springs, and by the 1800’s, the balneario (spa) itself was established. Lanjarón was now a destination for tourists.

The building we saw today was started in the 1920s after the original was destroyed in the earthquake of 1884. Inside there are various pools fed by five different springs (temperatures between 16° and 27° C / 60° - 80° F with bicarbonated, sodium, calcium, ferruginous, and magnesium qualities), treatment rooms, a theater space for live performances, and hotel rooms. (I originally thought it might be fun to stay there, but then we would have missed Marta’s house!)

While Ned got his hair cut, I tried to learn more about the tinao-adarves we saw yesterday, and chanced upon something totally unexpected. According to research done by a Jesuit priest , Father Ferrer, “the oldest works in the Hondillo neighborhood of Lanjarón were made by Jewish residents centuries ago. The objective of these buildings was to maintain a certain family independence around a patio and covered walkway where access from the street could only be obtained through a gigantic door or an enormous gate made mainly of chestnut wood.” This explains the big wooden door we saw yesterday.

Father Ferrer maintained that “since the daughters of Jews could only marry the sons of their paternal uncle, the family environment was thus preserved within these doorways. It was a way to ensure that the family patrimony would not be divided but would remain united even as the children grew up.”

Father Ferrer also says that “the buildings in the Hondillo neighborhood are different from those found in other parts of La Alpujarra because they also hold a religious significance. According to the Torah, on the Sabbath people could not take anything out of their homes, such as food, but since the covered walkway often had a courtyard, people could exchange items on the Sabbath without breaking the law.”Read more