Village
Municipality of the comarca of La Mancha del Júcar-Centro, in the province of Albacete, born of a wayside inn that obtained a district of its own on ceasing to depend on Alcaraz and whose parish archive holds records from 1601 onwards; some three hundred metres from the built-up area a cistern in the Arab tradition dated to the fifteenth century is preserved. It is the birthplace of the painter Benjamín Palencia, keeps up the tradition of the fire bull brought from Mexico at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and its plain of Las Tiesas has served as a test field for European Space Agency Earth observation campaigns.
Monument
Cistern in the Arab tradition dated to the 15th century, some 300 metres from the town centre on the road towards Villarrobledo. It is a notable example of medieval hydraulic engineering.
Monument
Flour mill standing atop a hill on the outskirts of the town, considered one of the tallest windmills on the European continent. Its silhouette appears on Barrax's coat of arms, alongside the saffron rose. Nearby there once stood a water reservoir, later replaced by the pozo de la Morra.
Nature
Hill replanted with trees in 2007, from whose summit a wide panorama of the flat landscape of La Mancha in Albacete can be seen. On its summit stands a hermitage, up to which the procession of Santa Quiteria climbs in pilgrimage every 22 May.
Nature
El Cuarto Filemón is an old hamlet located in a valley within the municipal area of Barrax (La Mancha del Júcar-Centro, Albacete), just past the cerro de Santa Quiteria. It retains the character of the traditional hamlets of the region, with vernacular buildings that show what these small rural La Mancha settlements were like.
Curiosity
The plain of Las Tiesas, thanks to its flatness and uniformity, has served as a testing ground for European Space Agency Earth observation campaigns such as DAISEX and SEN2FLEX.
Curiosity
Hill located within the municipal area of Barrax, rising 740 metres above the surrounding plain. It owes its name to the fact that the dioceses of Toledo, Cuenca and Cartagena met at this point until the diocese of Albacete was created in 1950, to which Barrax was assigned in 1966. The place name thus preserves the memory of an ecclesiastical boundary that for centuries shaped the territorial organisation of the region.
Curiosity
Benjamín Palencia (Barrax, 7 July 1894 - Madrid, 16 January 1980) was one of the great figures of 20th-century Spanish avant-garde art and is buried in the municipal cemetery of his home town. Founder of the Vallecas School, he passed through a surrealism of zoomorphic and plant-like forms before moving towards Iberian Fauvism, leaving an extensive body of work of around 600 oil paintings and 10,000 drawings. He designed the logo of La Barraca, the theatre company directed by Federico García Lorca, of which he was artistic director. In 1974 he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and in 1978 he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts.
Curiosity
Barrax, in the comarca of La Mancha del Júcar-Centro (Albacete), has an origin that tradition places at the so-called Venta de Barrax, an old inn on the road linking Andalusia with central Spain and the Levante coast, although no documents confirm this. On 20 September 1564 it received the title of villa by royal grant of Philip II, becoming independent of the jurisdiction of Alcaraz, to which it had belonged. The earliest surviving documents on the town date from 1601, the year of the oldest entries in its parish archive.
Curiosity
The toro de fuego is a tradition found in many Spanish towns, in which a metal or wooden frame in the shape of a bull, loaded with pyrotechnic elements such as fountains, wheeled rockets, spark wheels and cannons, is carried at a run by one or two people as it chases and startles the crowd gathered in the streets and squares during the patronal festivities. In Barrax, a tradition introduced from Mexico in the early 19th century by a returning emigrant, this wooden frame loaded with fireworks is carried running through the streets of the town during its festivities.
Activity
Pilgrimage to the cerro de Santa Quiteria, born of an old neighbourhood celebration and now the town's great spring event. It is held every 22 May, when the image of the saint is carried out in procession, borne on a platform, to the hermitage on the hill itself. Its origin goes back to a picnic that some friends of a parish priest organised on that hill to celebrate the birthday of the priest's mother; the custom was repeated year after year until it became the pilgrimage known today.
Activity
Patronal festivities in honour of San Roque, during which the town's population multiplies to around 6,000 residents. They are held from 13 to 17 August: on the 15th the Virgen de Agosto is venerated, on the 16th San Roque, and on the 17th San Roquillo. Its most distinctive event is the toro de fuego, a wooden frame fitted with firecrackers carried by a person inside it, which, once the fuse is lit, runs off chasing the residents gathered in the plaza Mayor. According to local tradition, this custom arrived in Barrax from Mexico in the early 19th century, brought by an indiano from the town.
Activity
The Paradiso Barrax Film Festival is a national short film competition held every July in this small municipality in the province of Albacete since 2005. It seeks to bring together the most innovative and the most traditional cinema, making room for short films, courses and audiovisual creation workshops, and to bring rural audiences closer to a kind of cinema that would otherwise be unknown to them. Barrax has hosted titles such as Miente, by Isabel de Ocampo, first prize in 2008 and winner of the Goya the following year; Misterio, by Chema García Ibarra; and Aquel no era yo, by Esteban Crespo, audience award in 2013 and nominated for the Oscar in 2014. Directors such as Álvaro Pastor and Antonio Naharro, the makers of the film Yo también, have also attended the festival.
Historical milestone
The parish archive of Barrax preserves its oldest registers from 1601, barely a generation after the roadside inn that gave rise to the village obtained its own district and ceased to depend on Alcaraz.
Food and drink
Rings of dough of flour, egg, oil and anise that are fried in a deep pan and rolled in sugar. They are made at home for the festivities of San Roque and accompany the mistela and the coffee of the long summer after-dinner gatherings.