This is the Mirador y Ermita del Espiritu Santo summit overlooking the community of Vera, in Andalucia, Spain.
This is the nearest town to the Villa we rented this winter and the conical shaped hill can be seen for miles around with the white statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus perched on its lofty summit.
I have taken lots of shots of this place, but on this night during our last week here, the sky was biblical, so I made a frantic dash for the hill and managed to get some shots before the clouds moved on and the November light went.
This is the site of an ancient Islamic settlement from the 12th Century when it was known as Bayra (Vera is actually pronounced "Bayra" in Spanish). Its origins as a Hill Fort go back much further with a Roman settlement on the Via Agusta route and a Carthaginian outpost here before that. Artefacts have been found here going back to the Bronze Age around 2000 BC.
The town of Bayra was destroyed by a devastating earthquake in 1518, with the epicentre around this hill. The modern town of Vera today was constructed a little further from this hill than the original settlement.
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