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La Rábida Friary

Buildings and structures in the Province of HuelvaCultural tourism in SpainFranciscan monasteries in SpainMonasteries in AndalusiaShrines to the Virgin Mary
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The Friary of La Rábida (in full, Spanish: Convento de Santa María de la Rábida) is a Franciscan friary in the southern Spanish town of Palos de la Frontera, in the province of Huelva and the autonomous region of Andalucia. The friary is located 13 km (8 mi) south of the city of Huelva, where the Tinto and Odiel rivers meet. The Friary of La Rábida has been Franciscan property since the thirteenth century. It was founded in 1261; the evidence is a papal bull issued by Pope Benedict XIII in that year, allowing Friar Juan Rodríguez and his companions to establish a community on the coast of Andalucia. The first Christian building on the site was constructed over a pre-existing Almohad ribat that lends its name (rábida or rápita, meaning "watchtower" in Arabic) to the present monastery. The Franciscans have held great influence in the region ever since. The buildings standing on the site today were erected in stages in the late fourteenth century and the early fifteenth century. The friary, and the church associated with it, display elements of Gothic and Moorish revival architecture; their walls are decorated with frescos by the twentieth-century Spanish artist, Daniel Vázquez Diaz (1882-1969). There is also a cloister and a museum, where numerous relics of the discovery of the Americas are displayed. The buildings on the site have nearly 20,000 sq ft (1,858 m2) of floor space and an irregular floor plan. Throughout its five hundred years of existence, the monastery has been refurbished and repaired countless times, but the most extensive modifications were undertaken as a result of damage from the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Christopher Columbus stayed at the friary two years before his famous first voyage, after learning that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had rejected his request for outfitting an expedition in search of the Indies. With the intervention of the guardian of La Rábida and the confessor to Isabella, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, he was able to have his proposal heard. The friary was declared a Spanish National Monument in 1856. In 2016 it was added to the Tentative List of World Heritage by UNESCO along with the Columbian Places.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article La Rábida Friary (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 37.207802777778 ° E -6.9259166666667 °
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Address

Monasterio de la Rábida

HU-3201
21819
Andalusia, Spain
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Website
monasteriodelarabida.com

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Nearby Places

Rio Tinto (river)
Rio Tinto (river)

The Río Tinto (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈri.o ˈtinto], red river or Tinto River) is a highly toxic river in southwestern Spain that rises in the Sierra Morena mountains of Andalusia. It flows generally south-southwest, reaching the Gulf of Cádiz at Huelva. The Rio Tinto river has a unique red and orange colour derived from its chemical makeup that is extremely acidic and with very high levels of iron and heavy metals.The river maintains its colour for an approximate length of 50 kilometres. After the 50 kilometre mark, the chemistry that makes the Rio Tinto river so unique appears to slowly decline, as does the odd colouring. The location where the chemistry of the river is altered is near a town called Niebla. The river's chemistry begins to significantly change following the town of Niebla owing to the fact that the Rio Tinto blends itself with other streams that are connected to the Atlantic Ocean. The river is approximately 100 km (62 mi) long and is located within the Iberian Pyrite Belt. This area has large amounts of ore and sulfide deposits. The Rio Tinto area has been the site of approximately 5,000 years of ore mining, including copper, silver, gold, and other minerals, extracted as far as 20 kilometres from the river shores. As a possible result of the mining, the Río Tinto is notable for being very acidic (pH 2) and its deep reddish hue is due to iron dissolved in the water. Acid mine drainage from the mines leads to severe environmental problems because the acidity (low pH) dissolves heavy metals into the water. It is not clear how much acid drainage has come from natural processes and how much has come from mining. There are severe environmental concerns over the pollution in the river.Although the river represents a harsh environment for life, some microorganisms classified as extremophiles do thrive in these conditions. Such life forms include certain species of bacteria, algae and heterotrophs.