Écija

Ecija — Écija, with its accent, flagged for the register — is "the frying pan of Andalusia" and wears the heat like a title. On the Genil between Seville and Córdoba, the town records some of Spain's fiercest summers and answers them with the country's most exuberant skyline: the "city of towers", eleven Baroque belfries in azulejo-clad splendour rising over the roofs — San Juan's blue-and-white tower the postcard — rebuilt in competitive glory after the 1755 earthquake, so that Écija's misfortune financed its silhouette. Beneath the towers, an aristocratic town of surprising density: the palaces of Peñaflor (its curved painted gallery a street-long fresco) and Benamejí, patio after patio of marble and orange trees.

Rome knew the place as Astigi, olive-oil supplier to the empire — the amphorae of Écija's oil built a measurable share of Monte Testaccio in Rome — and the municipal museum displays the reward of the digs: superb mosaics and the "Amazon of Écija", a rare Roman sculpture that made archaeological headlines. Horses complete the identity; the town's breeders and September fair keep Andalusia's equestrian culture in form. The concert record's register — bands, choirs, church music, touring visits — sounds beneath the belfries. Heat, towers, oil and horses: Écija concentrates the south to essence.