La Carolina

Nature

Its enclave at the foot of Sierra Morena and at the limits of the Natural Park of Despeñacolos, makes La Carolina a municipality especially attractive to nature lovers. The visitor has the opportunity to enjoy a landscape full of contrasts, with steep mountains and wide dehesas, on which it is easy to see majestic birds.

The cultivated land represents only 10% of its extent, mostly dedicated to olive trees. The main agricultural activities are the cultivation of olive trees, livestock and hunting, greater and lesser. It also highlights its mining landscape, heritage of an industry that supported the life of the Carolinians: remains of abandoned mines, lavatories, remains of smelters...

The vegetation is very abundant and heterogeneous: olive, oak, cork, chestnut, eucalyptus, alms and oaks. The fauna, both in larger game animals (boar, goose, cords, reels...) and smaller (rabbits, hares, parrots, quail) is very abundant. There are also cattle of wild cattle, sheep and goats.

Part of the term La Carolina covers the mountains of Sierra Morena to the north, while towards the south the landscape becomes adhesitated, thus offering beautiful and contrasting landscapes. In the area of saw, the highest peak of the mountain range, La Estrella, with 1,300? m altitude. The nearby Natural Parks of Despeñacolos to the East and the Sierra de Andújar to the West.

To the South, the Embalse de La Fernandina allows sports fishing and presents beautiful images of the Mediterranean forest, being an ideal place for the development of a rich extensive livestock.

The villages abound in their term as well as the natural sites, making La Carolina a municipality of special human and natural appeal. It has three urban cores or pedanias, these being:

• The village of Los Guindos, to the north of the term and in the surroundings of the saw, evokes its mining past.

• Aldea La Fernandina: presents one of the simplest traces of the New Populations, of rectilinear and orthogonal design.

• Aldea La Isabela: The route of this village, presents reminiscent of the European city of the Enlightenment.

Parties and Events

In addition to the Christmas and Carnival celebrations, the most rooted celebrations in the town are as follows:

• Festivals of the Foundationthey are held from 3 to 5 July, in an attempt to link present and past from La Carolina, to value in a fun way its history, traditions and origin. The acts include the reading of the court and the tribute to the Colonoan act to claim the persons who still keep foreign surnames.

• May Fair, has its origin in a cattle party that is very famous and that competed with the most important in Spain. A Selected livestock morphological competition (berrenda cow, seaweed sheep and serrana goat)

• Festivals of San Juan de la Cruz, Patron from La Carolina. The last weekend of November is held. The tradition of Shake a live pig after the celebration of the Eucharist.

• San Carlos Borromeo, which is celebrated on November 4 and is also co-patron of the city.

• Romeria de San Isidroon the 15th of May, and is celebrated with a Romeria to the natural area of La Aliseda, a beautiful recreational area that is located in the village of Santa Elena, at the foot of Despeñacolos.

• Carnivals, of the most renowned in the province of Jaén.

Gastronomy

Hunting is very present in the local gastronomy, so among the most traditional dishes we have:

• Monkey meat, first adobada and then stew in sauce.

• Pate of perdiz, typical Jaén dish that was born on these lands.

• Scattered perdiz, a dish that can get cold.

• Chickpeas, which is consumed preferably in Lent.

• Migas and Pipirrana.

• Jars with hare.

• Trick asparagus.

• Cod wet.

In the pastry shop, the following are typical:

• Sweet gazes of the holiday of All Saints.

• Summer gazhas: with fish and peppers, according to the recipe of the miners who came from Almería and Granada.

• Oil nuts, Rice with milk, fried milk and drunks.
  

History

In the 18th century, the enlightened king Carlos III and its ministers (Aranda, Jovellanos and Campomans) decide to create the New Populations in Sierra Morena. At the head of the repopulation he put the Superintendent Pedro Olavidewho would be responsible for the settlement of settlers from France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

In 1767, the The strength of the New Populationsestablishing the regulations and rules governing these new settlements, different from those of the rest of the country. This year, and near La Peñuela, a former Carmelite convent, La Carolina is founded, which would be the capital of all the new settlements in Sierra Morena.

The beautiful city of La Carolina is the best example of the city of Enlightenment. It is known as the City Jewel of the Holy Kingdom. This was designed as a Roman camp; that is, following two axes that are crossed, one from N to S, which is called cardo and another called decumano, from E to O that in the City Hall square is where they are, indicating this crossing the city center, according to the design of Simon Desnaux, supervised by Olavide. The avenues of Las Huertas and Juan Carlos I are the main lines for the division of the land. The result of its urbanization is an orthogonal mesh that divides it into squares, with streets and straight and wide avenues.

In the mid-19th century, La Carolina began the exploitation of its rich Argentine lead filons. Previous mining work already existed, but it will now be when a large-scale exploitation begins that will lead you, in the early and mid-20th century, to become the world's largest Argentine lead producer along with the nearby Linares, under the territorial delimitation of Linares- La Carolina mining district.

This led to a strong immigration of workers from nearby provinces that significantly changed their demography and sociology, even to the birth of populations around these farms such as El Centenillo or El Guindo.

But the mining crisis meant the closure of all the mines in the 1970s. Thus today, the buildings linked to this activity have become part of the landscape as witnesses to its industrial past, being inscribed in the catalogue of the Institute of Historical Heritage of Andalusia.

For a few decades, La Carolina has been in the industrialization sector and is now a city full of future.

Other information

The village of The Guindsbecause of its geographical location it is a great place to make astronomical observations, especially in the autumn and winter months. In fact, it is included as a Mirador within the "Reserve Certification and Starlight Tourist Destination of Sierra Morena."