El Pinar was originally two different municipalities: Pinos del Valle and Ízbor, which were made into just one in 1976 with the latter becoming the administrative centre (Town Hall).
When we think of the Valle de Lecrín we think of citric crops but it wasn’t always like this because grapes used to be grown there until the 1870 when the great wine blight caused by the Phylloxera aphid, wiped out the vines in the 1870s. Beznar was the first village in Valle de Lecrin to introduce citric trees in the 20th century, and from there, spread throughout the valley.
Pinos del Valle comprises of two barrios (Barrio Alto & Barrio Bajo). Iglesia La Inmaculada Concepción, was built between 1561 & 1566 and is situated in Barrio Bajo. Iglesia de San Sebastián, on the other hand was built more recently, in the 19th Century, on top of an old chapel, which in turn dated back to the 17th Century.
Another monument is the Ermita del Santo Cristo del Zapato, built in 1925 on top of the hill top known as the Cerro Chinchira, standing at a height of 1,059 metres. It had to be rebuilt in 2009 after a massive lightning strike.
It was on Christmas Day, 1884, during the reign of Alfonso XII that earthquakes, measuring 6.2 and 6.5 on the Richter Scale caused a lot of damage to Pinos del Valle.
Ízbor is on the banks of Río Ízbor. This river actually has two other names, depending on which stretch you are referring to: it starts off as Río Dúrcal before becoming Río Ízbor, but there is actually another name, Río Grande, dating back to the 17th Century, which the older folk still use.
Like all villages of Moorish origin, Ízbor has Tinaos (a tunnel through a house) and inner patios serving several houses. Given the narrow, steep streets most of the village is too narrow for cars, so they’re left at the entrance.
There is a pathway between Pinos del Rey (Valle) and Ízbor that is transitable in most parts although there are other parts where brambles invade this ancient route. It takes about an hour and a half to walk between the two. The path was for beasts of burden; mules, donkeys, making it a sort of bridle path.
Along the way as you ascend, you will be able to see the five bridges that cross the river in Tablate, as well as the old inn, Venta de Las Angustias and the abandoned village of Tablate. The village or hamlet of Tablate has recently been bought by an ex monk, who with the help of volunteers every Sunday are restoring the old buildings.
The inn used to be the half-way house between the coast and Granada, where the bus always used to stop to let passengers off to have a coffee and use the toilets — that was long before the autovia when the only way up was on the N-323.
As for the bridges, the furthest is the oldest that was around at the time of the Moorish rebellion of the 1700s. Next to it is the old N-323 bridge and above them both is the relatively new Alpujarra road where a young British woman lost her life bungee jumping from it. Finally, there are the two A-44 bridges.
Embalse de Béznar
Work on its construction began in 1977 and was finally concluded in 1985; in other words, of the two reservoirs Rules and Beznar, the latter is the oldest. The dam itself was build in an area know as El Salto de Lobo (Wolf’s Leap) where the valley is at its narrowest — legend has it that a wolf leapt across, which probably didn’t end happily.
The dam wall towers 110 meters above the river bed and if you take into account the dam-wall foundations, the actual height is 134 metres. The distance from one end to the other is 408m. The reservoir covers an area of 170 hectares and can hold 56 cubic hectometres.
Both reservoirs (Ízbor actually borders with Rules Reservoir) were built for irrigation but also to feed the two hydro-electric generation stations of Ízbor and Velez de Benaudalla.
The town of Beznar itself, when entering from the South, the old houses (amongst them the church and a mesón) on the right are lower than the road. This is because the original road or Camino Real (king’s road) to the Alpujarra ran at a lower level that the existing one. Engineers, during the era of Isabel II (1843-70) decided to higher the surface in order to cross three barranco.
