Riogordo Ethnographic Museum

About Riogordo Ethnographic Museum

The Museo Etnográfico de Riogordo stands on Calle de la Iglesia in Riogordo, a village of about 3,000 people in the inland Axarquía, below the Sierra del Rey. It brings together three buildings: a Mudéjar-style manor house, an olive mill with its miller's house, and a flour mill.

The olive mill traces oil-making from Roman times to the Industrial Revolution. A mule turned the cone-shaped millstone, oil was separated from water and pulp by gravity and stored in large clay jars, and both wooden and iron presses survive. Until the early 20th century the oil went by mule to the port of Málaga. The San Antonio flour mill was set up in 1925 by the carpenter Enrique Salvero, with 19th-century hydraulic parts; muleteers once brought wheat there secretly at night.

In the manor house, a chapel has a domed ceiling and stained glass, and a narrow staircase leads down to the miller's kitchen, with household goods and tools. The upper rooms host temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. Entry is free, with a voluntary donation.

Listed hours are short: Thursday and Friday mornings and weekend afternoons, so check first. Spring and autumn suit the drive through the hills best; Holy Week brings Riogordo's famous Passion play, El Paso.

Riogordo Ethnographic Museum in pictures

What you’ll find

• Museum exhibitionExhibition visitTicket
• Museum galleriesMuseum visitTicket

Nearby places to visit

Just over the hill, the Honey Museum of Málaga (4 km) in Colmenar is devoted to the honey for which the Montes de Málaga are known, and Colmenar shares Riogordo's olive oil route. Down on the coast, about half an hour's drive away, Añoreta Resort & Golf (22 km) is an 18-hole course by José María Cañizares, and Real Club de Golf El Candado (22 km) a short nine-hole course dating from 1968. The MVVEL Museum of Vélez-Málaga (22 km) tells the history of the Axarquía in a former hospital founded in 1487, and Playa Cala del Moral (23 km) is a village beach known for its grilled sardines.