CUEVAS DE GUADIX (CAVES)

The cave homes' thick walls insure warm interiors for the winter and cool living during the hot summers with room temperatures maintained at 19ºC all year long.
The interiors can be quite large, some are even hotels. There are in fact around four thousand caves that form biggest inhabited cave settlement in Europe.The name Guadix stems from the Arabic 'Guadh-Haix', which means 'River of Life'. Julius Caesar instigated the building of a settlement in order to mine the silver from the nearby hills, but it was the Moors who created the cave settlement. Before that, they developed an important silk industry, which put the town on a par with Granada, but in the fifteenth century they were expelled by the Christians and had no choice but to retreat to the hills and live in existing caves, or dig new ones. The ground in this area is easily excavated, so it was a natural thing to do, rather than brave the harsh outdoor elements.