Discover Baeza

Baeza (anc. Beatia), a town of Andalusia, southern Spain, in the province of Jaén; in the Loma de Ubeda, a mountain range between the river Guadalquiver on the South and its tributary the Guadalimar on the North. Baeza contains population of 15,000. Baeza has a station 3 miles south west on the Linares-Almeria railway and bus transportation from Granada or Málaga. Its chief buildings are those of the university (founded in 1533, and replaced by a theological seminary), the cathedral and the Franciscan monastery. The Cordova and Ubeda gates, and the arch of Baeza, are among the remains of its old fortifications, which were of great strength. In the middle ages Baeza was a flourishing Moorish city, said to contain 50,000 inhabitants; but it was sacked in 1239 by Ferdinand III of Castile, who in 1248 transferred its bishopric to Jaen.