Inside the spectacular Spanish town that was mistakenly abandoned

The town of Granadilla is located in Extremadura in the centre-west of the country and was founded by Muslims in the 9th century, but now lies intact but completely empty

A beautiful 9th century town in Spain lies completely empty nearly 60 years after it was abandoned by mistake.

Across Europe many enchanting old towns and villages have been left for ruin over the centuries, to be taken over by flora and fauna once the last person has left.

In most cases small settlements in rural areas are left behind due to a lack of jobs, becoming ghost towns as people head for the big cities.

The case of Granadilla is certainly different, and arguably much sadder than this.

The town is located in Extremadura in the centre-west of the country and was founded by Muslims in the 9th century.

During the Middle Ages Granadilla boomed and became the main town in an area which included 17 other towns and villages.

In 1950, more than a millennium after it was first founded, a thousand people lived in Granadilla, many of them farmers working the land outside its walls.

Just 14 years later, every single one of them had left.

The reason they all upped sticks was because of Fransisco Franco, the dictator of Spain at the time who decided to build the Gabriel y Galán reservoir, writes the Piggy Traveller.

Granadilla was declared a ‘flood zone’ and five years later government officials arrived in the town and told locals that it now belonged to the state – rendering those who lived their squatters.

While many left straight away, those who stayed were forced to rent the homes they used to own.

As the reservoir – which was the largest of a series designed to boost Spain’s economy during a period of forced international isolation – filled up, roads to the town began to be cut off.

When the water level reached its highest point Granadilla became a peninsular, cut off aside from one route.

However, the town itself was never flooded, in no small part due to the fact that Granadilla is higher than the dam itself.

Despite the fact that it very much wasn’t underwater as had been said by the government, locals were not allowed to return to their homes.

“It was a travesty,” Eugenio Jiménez, president of the Association Sons of Granadilla, told the BBC.

“They kicked us out, claiming that the dam would flood the town, which was impossible because the town is higher than the dam.”

Purificación Jiménez, a former resident, added. “I remember that every time a family left the village, everyone came out to the entrance of the village to say goodbye and cried.”

Today the only way to get to the town is via a pot-holed road from Zarza de Granadilla or Abadía.

In the years after it was evacuated looters ransacked much of Granadilla, even stealing the main altarpiece from its church.

In 1980 the government declared Granadilla a Historical-Artistic Ensemble and young artists arrived to help restore some of its buildings.

Residents are still banned from returning and the town is now run as a free open air museum.