Description
Antonio Machado visited the Santuario de la Virgen de Tíscar, Patroness of Quesada, on excursions to the sources of the Guadalquivir.The Sanctuary is located fourteen kilometers from the town, at the foot of the Peña Negra, accessed through a winding mountain road. The Sanctuary has been an enclave of pilgrimage for centuries (the current building that houses the Sanctuary was rebuilt throughout the 20th century on the remains of a primitive medieval hermitage). Inside the temple we will find the image of the Virgin of Tíscar, carved by the sculptor Jacinto Higueras. In recent years, the Quesada City Council has been holding concerts of different musical genres on the first Saturday of August on the Esplanade of the Sanctuary. In addition, the villages of Tíscar, Belerda and Don Pedro celebrate the Fiesta de los Cargos or Dios Chico during December 26, 27 and 28. Already in the Sanctuary, on the esplanade at the entrance to the temple, in homage to Antonio Machado, there is a poem in stone dating from 1959 and that alludes to the Cordillera or Cuerda de los Agrios, a mountainous spine that collapses over the port of Tíscar and that runs parallel to the Cabañas hill, one of the main heights of the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas Natural Park: CLXVI OLD SONGS IV In the Quesada mountain range there is a giant eagle, greenish, black and gold, always open wings. It is made of stone and it does not get tired. (…) Above the Sanctuary, in the Peña Negra, rise the remains of the rock castle, built in the 14th century under Christian rule, of which only the Homage tower remains. A few meters down the road is the Cueva del Agua -declared a Natural Monument of Andalusia by the Junta in April 2019-, with spectacular waterfalls and waterfalls, considered one of the most dazzling geological wonders in the province of Jaén, and which, without a doubt, Machado visited in his search for the sources of the Guadalquivir.
