Extremadura is unequivocally and unapologetically Spanish. This is not Galícia, or Pais Vasco, or Cataluña -- there are no competing linguistic or national identities here. This is the birthplace of the conquistadors, the home of jamón serrano, where people still siesta and pictures of los reyes are hung proudly in public offices, in no danger of being burned in street protests. Bienvenida a España Profunda, they told me when I first arrived -- Welcome to Deep Spain.
This morning I wound through tiny towns and fields of sheep to Cáceres: provincial capital, university town, and almost perfectly preserved walled city of Roman, Moorish, and conquistador-funded wonders.
The walls and several adobe towers are mostly Moorish, with a few of the arched entrance ways dating back to Roman times. Within lies a maze of narrow, uneven cobblestone streets, Gothic churches (each bell tower with its own family of storks), heavily restored Arab remains (the Cáceres museum is housed what was the Alcázar and includes a cute patio and the arched aljibe, or cistern), and solares built in the 15th century by (rich) returning conquistadors. I walked along happily on what was a sunny but crisp morning (high of 12 today), running my fingers along the jagged walls, photographing flowers and following cats.
One of the cats led me to the Casa Árabe, a private museum born of one man's excavations and renovations in his Moorish home. It's neat -- complete with its own cistern, small courtyard and basement steam bath that also served to heat the main bedroom. It's also profoundly odd, including, among other things, tourism posters (circa 1970) from Egypt and letters and photographs from the Iraqi ambassador to Spain.
Cáceres is nice outside of the walls, too. It's small, but it's a city -- which was refreshing. There are wide, tree-lined avenues, pedestrianized shopping streets and a theatre (on now: a concert series called 'Cáceres Sounds Like Portugal' with headliners Dulce Pontes and Camané). It feels like a world away from Don Benito -- but it's only and hour and a bit on the bus, which means I'll probably find excuses to venture that way throughout the year.
One conquistador town down...
....the rest of Deep Spain to discover.
more photos at http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2174774&l=c48fa&id=13604199
3 comments:
Parece valer a pena visitar Caceres!
Algumas das fotos ate parecem ser daqui.
Ainda deve haver mais para descubrir a tua volta...
dear carla, the pictures are awesome... i was wondering... coul you tell me about spain's reaction to "porque no te callas???
love,
Virginia
chávez has provided a lot of amusement to the spanish in the past few weeks. just yesterday one of my students said porqué no te callas to one of her classmates (not intending to quote el rey) and we all had the giggles for like 5 minutes. in general people think the king did the right thing and chávez is nutty. it doesn't help that he publically announced that he was going to 'congelar' relations with spain...and then the venezuelan ambassador assured the spanish government that there would be no actually changes. i think people are conscious that this whole issues is being manipulated by chávez for his own political purposes and are not too perplexed. but it has been on the news/editorials/comedy shows ever since it happened....
Post a Comment