Days 7-9: Wandering in Cuenca - revisits and new visits
Disclaimer: All voyages in this blog are being taken safely in the comfort of our imaginations - based on our plans and intentions for travel in 2020. What is reality after all?
We've spent three full days in and around Cuenca this visit, exploring some new things to do, and revisiting some familiar and favourite sites.
It's very easy just to wander round the old city (and with one exception, that's all of the city we really saw), catching glimpses of the surroundings through little arch ways:
The houses on the cliff faces - on both sides of the old city, above both hoces (is that the correct plural of hoz?) - are a spectacular feature of the city. Often they appear at street level to be only one or two storeys high, but then tumble down the cliff faces, so you enter at the top of the buildings:
We'd walked past a little door in a wall in the main street into the old town several times in the past, without realising what it was:
This time, we asked at the Tourist office, and booked ourselves into a (Spanish-only language) tour under the streets - the Tunel de Alfonso VIII:
These were tunnels used for various purposes including aqueducts, crypts and air raid shelters. Even though we couldn't understand everything - and the friendly guides added some English where they could - it was a new and fascinating aspect to Cuenca.
Back above ground, a narrow pedestrian bridge - San Pablo - crosses the Huécar to the Parador (and there's a gallery in the attached church). Looking back, we could see a familiar sight: the Casas Colgadas or Hanging Houses, from the 15th Century - now a very interesting Museum of Spanish Abstract Art. A couple of prints from this gallery hang in our house back home: Fernando Zóbel's 'Jardín seco' (1969), hanging over the bath in our bathroom, and Eusebio Sempere's 'Horizonte' (1978) hanging in the guest bedroom:
The outside of the building is emblematic of the city:
but the inside uses its position looking out over the gorge, to present this also as art, alongside that on formal display. We remembered the 'white room' from our first visit, where the four windows are liked framed pictures of harsh landscape ... and it didn't disappoint again:
On the other side of the old city, looking out across the other hoz, we could see some eyes painted on the cliff: Los Ojos de la Mora - illustrating a local story about the area - a love story between a Moorish woman and a Christian man:
Of course, there are other galleries and museums in the old city, including one up towards our top of the town car park, where we'd previously seen a wonderfully irreverent homage by Equipo Crónica to Velazquez, under the title Crónicas Reales - Las Meninas, on our previous visit:
Our one trip down into the new(er) city took us to the Museum of Paleontology, in a modern building, almost on the edge of town. As well as very engaging displays, the Museum greets us with some realistic models both outside and in the entrance:
We spent a couple of hours here. (Last visit, we did the same in the Science Museum in the old town - not this time; but we remember it as also a fascinating place.)
On one of the days, we checked that the car was still OK in the parking lot, and then drove a short distance out from Cuenca into the hills, where two related sites sit within the twisted, eroded rocky landscape. We hadn't been to Los Callejones de las Majadas before:
but the Ciudad Encantada (Enchanted City) was somewhat familiar - though more work had been done since our last visit many years ago, to respond to tourist interest:
Finally each day, we came back to the Plaza Major, with a mass of bars and restaurants to choose from for tapas or full meals:
We'll move on from Cuenca tomorrow, but it remains one of our favourite places to visit ... even if the CD shop in the new city has closed down!
We've spent three full days in and around Cuenca this visit, exploring some new things to do, and revisiting some familiar and favourite sites.
It's very easy just to wander round the old city (and with one exception, that's all of the city we really saw), catching glimpses of the surroundings through little arch ways:
The houses on the cliff faces - on both sides of the old city, above both hoces (is that the correct plural of hoz?) - are a spectacular feature of the city. Often they appear at street level to be only one or two storeys high, but then tumble down the cliff faces, so you enter at the top of the buildings:
We'd walked past a little door in a wall in the main street into the old town several times in the past, without realising what it was:
This time, we asked at the Tourist office, and booked ourselves into a (Spanish-only language) tour under the streets - the Tunel de Alfonso VIII:
These were tunnels used for various purposes including aqueducts, crypts and air raid shelters. Even though we couldn't understand everything - and the friendly guides added some English where they could - it was a new and fascinating aspect to Cuenca.
Back above ground, a narrow pedestrian bridge - San Pablo - crosses the Huécar to the Parador (and there's a gallery in the attached church). Looking back, we could see a familiar sight: the Casas Colgadas or Hanging Houses, from the 15th Century - now a very interesting Museum of Spanish Abstract Art. A couple of prints from this gallery hang in our house back home: Fernando Zóbel's 'Jardín seco' (1969), hanging over the bath in our bathroom, and Eusebio Sempere's 'Horizonte' (1978) hanging in the guest bedroom:
The outside of the building is emblematic of the city:
but the inside uses its position looking out over the gorge, to present this also as art, alongside that on formal display. We remembered the 'white room' from our first visit, where the four windows are liked framed pictures of harsh landscape ... and it didn't disappoint again:
On the other side of the old city, looking out across the other hoz, we could see some eyes painted on the cliff: Los Ojos de la Mora - illustrating a local story about the area - a love story between a Moorish woman and a Christian man:
Of course, there are other galleries and museums in the old city, including one up towards our top of the town car park, where we'd previously seen a wonderfully irreverent homage by Equipo Crónica to Velazquez, under the title Crónicas Reales - Las Meninas, on our previous visit:
We spent a couple of hours here. (Last visit, we did the same in the Science Museum in the old town - not this time; but we remember it as also a fascinating place.)
On one of the days, we checked that the car was still OK in the parking lot, and then drove a short distance out from Cuenca into the hills, where two related sites sit within the twisted, eroded rocky landscape. We hadn't been to Los Callejones de las Majadas before:
but the Ciudad Encantada (Enchanted City) was somewhat familiar - though more work had been done since our last visit many years ago, to respond to tourist interest:
Finally each day, we came back to the Plaza Major, with a mass of bars and restaurants to choose from for tapas or full meals:
We'll move on from Cuenca tomorrow, but it remains one of our favourite places to visit ... even if the CD shop in the new city has closed down!
Cuenca is always worth a visit and I'm amazed you, Roger found new things to explore on top of the previous interesting places we discovered on our two previous stays.
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