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Setenil de las Bodegas is a very unique village. How often can you eat a tapa under a rock overhang? Exactly, not often. I ended up here during a tour of the beautiful white villages of the Cádiz province. Of all those villages, Setenil is probably the most beautiful and certainly the most unusual. The village is built in a gorge formed by the erosion of the Guadalporcún River. Homes, bars, and restaurants are built under the shelter of an overhanging rock formation. You have to see it and experience it to believe it. In another part of the village, there is even a street with white houses on either side that don’t see daylight. The rock hangs over the street. Strangely, it feels both protective and threatening. The rest of the village, with an old fort, a church, and a castle, is also more than worth the visit.
Sipping on a drink, and in the shade of the rock, a friendly waiter told me about the name Setenil. It comes from the Latin "Septem Nihil," which means seven times nothing. The village was unsuccessfully besieged seven times in the 1400s. The eighth time, it succeeded, and the Moors were driven out by the Catholics. Cheers, Jolanda.
