Follow in the footsteps of Muñoz Molina and discover the city that inspires his stories of light, time, and emotion.
The Antonio Muñoz Molina Literary Route invites you to explore Úbeda through the intimate and profound eyes of one of Spain's great writers. The author of *The Polish Rider* transforms his city into a territory where reality and fiction intertwine to construct a unique universe filled with memory, history, and emotion.
As you stroll through Úbeda, you delve into the settings that shaped his childhood and youth, and which remain alive today in novels such as *Beatus Ille* and *Plenilunio*. Each stop you make is a fragment of that sentimental map, which the author transforms into literature.
In the Sacra Capilla de El Salvador, with its "Juancaballos" carved in stone, you discover the first clue to a route that unites Renaissance heritage and literary evocation. From there, you continue towards the Monument to the Fallen, the Clock Tower, or the House of Towers, spaces that Muñoz Molina transforms into symbols of identity and collective memory.
The San Lorenzo neighborhood, with its cobblestone streets, viewpoints, and white houses, becomes the emotional heart of the route. Here you'll find the author's family home, a place that appears repeatedly in his novels as a refuge from which to contemplate the world. Nearby, the Orozco Palace and the Church of San Isidoro complete an itinerary where architecture and literature engage in a natural dialogue. The Mercado de Abastos (Central Market), the viewpoints along the city walls, and other everyday corners of Úbeda reveal the writer's more human side: daily life, trades, the landscapes of the Guadalquivir Valley, and the memory of a city that becomes a universal metaphor. This route is not just a monumental tour: it is an invitation to discover Úbeda through the sensibility of Muñoz Molina, to view its squares, palaces, and neighborhoods with the same blend of nostalgia, lucidity, and beauty that permeates his work. A journey where literature illuminates the landscape, and the landscape shapes literature.

Arjona is the birthplace of a storyteller who transformed Jaén into a land of legends.

Following the path of Juan Eslava Galán means discovering Jaén through the eyes of one of its greatest storytellers. Born in Arjona, the writer has made the province a recurring setting for his novels, where history, mystery, and landscape intertwine seamlessly.

In Arjona, his hometown, you'll wander through squares, churches, and hidden corners that inspired many of his works. From the ancient Alcázar to the Sanctuary of the Sacred Relics, each stop reveals fragments of a past that Eslava Galán brings to life with humor, rigor, and fascination.

His books—from *In Search of the Unicorn* to *The Templar Tombstone*—take you on a journey through Martos, Baeza, Jaén, Alcaudete, Baños de la Encina, and Úbeda, places that come alive with Templar enigmas, medieval adventures, and local legends.

This route is, in essence, a bridge between literature and the land, allowing you to enjoy the province with a curious and engaging perspective.

A journey to encounter Miguel Hernández in the places where his words became life

Arriving in Jaén, following in the footsteps of Miguel Hernández, means immersing yourself in one of the most intense and luminous chapters of his life, even with the shadow of war surrounding it. The people's poet, barely thirty years old and with overflowing creative energy, found in these lands a human and natural landscape that left a profound mark on his work and his memory.

His stay was brief—only seventy-two days—but extraordinarily fruitful. Here he wrote some of his most vibrant texts, among them "Aceituneros," which has become the anthem of the province. In Jaén, you don't just observe the land he contemplated: you listen to it, you walk it, you feel it in your skin. And that emotion connects with the verses that still resonate in the identity of Jaén.

Assigned as commissioner of the Southern Front's public address system, Miguel traveled through streets, squares, and shelters, living among the people and narrating from within the most harrowing episodes of the conflict. Following his trail, you travel from the capital to Andújar or Lopera and discover the young and committed perspective that bore witness to a turbulent time, but also to a humanity forging its path amidst the noise of war.

Today, as you walk this route, you will find a Jaén that speaks to you and to history: squares that bear scars, shelters that hold silences, thermal baths where the poet strolled with Josefina Manresa, and corners where his clear and courageous voice still seems to echo. It is a journey that invites you to pause, to look calmly, and to feel how literature intertwines with the land.

Miguel Hernández Legacy Website

https://www.dipujaen.es/miguelhernandez

When you follow the Antonio Machado Literary Route in Baeza, you enter one of the deepest and most silent chapters of his life. Here you discover the poet who arrived wounded by Leonor's death and found in our land a refuge of calm, study, and contemplation. For seven years, Baeza was his home, his inner landscape, and the stage where his poetry matured toward a deeper, more philosophical perspective.

On this route, you walk through the places that marked his daily life: the Hotel Comercio, where he lived his early years; the social clubs and gatherings where he listened more than he spoke; the narrow streets he strolled on his meditative walks; and the Santísima Trinidad Institute, where he taught French and where you can still enter his classroom, preserved as a small literary sanctuary.

You also visit the Plaza de Santa María, the Cathedral, the Paseo de las Murallas (Walk of the Walls), and the spots from which he contemplated Mágina, a landscape that ultimately captured his poetry. At each stop, you feel how Baeza healed his grief, restoring the slow rhythm of life and offering him a space to think, write, and rediscover himself.

This route encourages you to walk slowly, to see as he saw, and to discover Jaén from the serenity that inspired some of the most intimate verses of the Generation of '98.

With Saint John of the Cross, you begin an intimate journey through the places in Jaén where the mystic found refuge, inspiration, and silence. Here you discover the legacy of a poet who transformed spiritual experience into one of the pinnacles of world literature.

Your journey begins in Villanueva del Arzobispo, where Saint John arrived in 1578, ill and weakened after his captivity. In the Convent of Calvary, you will find the space where he served as prior and where, amidst confessions and spiritual direction, he began to outline the grand schemes of his thought. You will stroll through the Plaza Mayor and around the Sanctuary of Fuensanta, where he visited the new Carmelite convent.

The route continues towards Baeza, a university city and Renaissance center. Here he founded the Discalced Carmelite College, served as its first rector, and you feel the serenity of a place that fostered his formative work and contemplative life. Further on, you arrive at La Peñuela, in La Carolina, where he lived his last months as a simple subject following internal disputes within the Order. From there, he was transferred to Úbeda, where he died at the age of 49. In this city, you can visit the Museum of Saint John of the Cross, the only one in the world dedicated to him. The itinerary is completed with other essential sites: the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites and the Center for the Interpretation of Mysticism in Beas de Segura, and the autograph manuscripts preserved in Andújar and Jaén, true literary treasures.

On this route, you'll discover Jaén through the depth, beauty, and silence that shaped the life and work of Saint John of the Cross. A journey where landscape, spirituality, and literature converge.

In Beas de Segura, you follow the light of Saint Teresa, where words become calm and landscape.

In Beas de Segura, you enter a territory where mysticism becomes landscape. Here you discover the living imprint of a woman ahead of her time, who came to these lands to found, write, and open new paths within the Carmelite Order.

On your visit, you follow in the Saint's footsteps from La Ventilla de Beas, where she was received with jubilation, to the Monastery of San José del Salvador, her first foundation in Andalusia and one of the most luminous places in her life. You stroll through the former Hospice of the Discalced Carmelites, stop at the Mysticism Interpretation Center, and cross the Puente Mocho, the same one Teresa crossed on her way to Seville.

Beas de Segura envelops you with the serenity of a town that has preserved the Teresian spirit intact: a land “very delightful and of good temper,” as she herself wrote. This route invites you to discover Jaén through the calm, spirituality, and simple beauty that inspired one of the great voices of our literature.

When you follow the Teresian route in Beas de Segura, you walk in the footsteps of a woman who transformed the spirituality of her time. Each place holds a fragment of her story and invites you to discover the serenity, strength and light that marked her life in Jaén.

When you follow the Jorge Manrique Literary Route, you delve into the landscapes that shaped the life and work of one of the great poets of the 15th century. In Jaén, you discover the land where he was born, grew up, and found inspiration for one of the most universal works of our literature: the Coplas a la muerte de su padre (Stanzas on the Death of His Father).

Along the route, you stroll through places that still preserve his memory: Segura de la Sierra, where he was born; the castles and fortresses where I have served as a man of arms; as well as the roads that accompanied him throughout his family and political life. Each place allows you to better understand the poet's sensitivity and the depth of his perspective on time, life, and death.

When you follow in the footsteps of the warrior-poet, you journey through three essential places in his life. Each one brings you closer to his story, his work and the landscapes that accompanied him from childhood to maturity.