Towns, Villages and Cities to visit from Andalucia
Cáceres, Extremadura, A Walled Renaissance Town
In the centre of Extremadura is Cáceres. A World Heritage Site since 1986 and declared a Place of Historical Artistic Interest, by Royal decree no less, in 1949, it held the promise of great things; and provided them, although not entirely what was expected.
As you approach the old town, sat on the highest point of course, you will notice the warm yellow sandstone walls that totally encircle the hill. There are only three gates breaching the walls that allow access to vehicles and pneumatic stumps guard each one, the modern version of the portcullis. For the pedestrians there are another four gates through the well maintained perimeter. For those who like a little trek then a walk around the interior base of the walls will take about one hour and gives you the opportunity to admire the twenty two fortified towers. This is worth doing because it gives you a realistic idea of the size of the place, not very large. Yet this area is crammed with about seventy buildings, palacios, churches, museum and casas that the tourist board encourage you to visit.
You will probably find yourself in the large and imposing Plaza Mayor which is just outside the walls and, from its cafes and restaurants, offers a fine view of the town. This plaza is 'the' place to be in Cáceres and it is around here that you will find the restaurants. The local specialities include suckling pig and goat.
Wandering through the narrow, claustrophobic streets, it is virtually impossible to get lost, even if you use the tourist map. What do you see? Monumental buildings, but no humble abodes. Where did the peasants live? What exactly has happened with this town? Another thing may strike you, the building style; it's all relatively modern, well après 1450, no medieval, no Arabic, certainly no Roman. And what about the sinister statue of a hooded figure carrying a cross alongside a desiccated monk with a leper's bell just outside the walls? Suitably intrigued it was time to find the answers to these questions.
As ever the best place to start was the museum, which is situated in the Casa de las Veletas o los Algibes, a bit of a mouthful, but it is the large building right at the top of the old town. There exhibits take you from the Paleolithic, through the Neolithic, Megalithic, copper, bronze and iron ages and, hardly pausing for breath, into the Roman period. The Romans did have a town here, they called it Norba Caesarina, although nothing now survives of it. The Arabs similarly were here but, with one notable exception, little remains from their time either. The exception is the cistern below the museum, still carrying water it is a monument to Arab ingenuity.
The puzzle as to why this town seems to start in the mid 15th Century is then explained. In 1229 King Alfonso IX took the town from the Arabs. It was retained by the Christians who ripped down virtually every building in the place. They then built the walls to defend themselves from the Arabs who, occasionally over the next couple of hundred years, tried to get it back. The town became a free trade centre and was soon full of merchants and then aristocracy all trying to outdo one another with fine buildings. In 1476 Fernando and Isabel ordered most of the town to be demolished to stop the continuous jostling for power.
One group of buildings that did survive is tucked away beneath the city walls and is the old Jewish quarter now called the Barrio de San Antonio. The Jews were moved outside the walls in 1478 to a new area around Calle Pintores, near that horrific statue in fact. In 1479 there were 130 Jewish families in the city, a considerable proportion of the population of 2,000. By 1493 there were none, all having been expelled from Spain, or worse.
After a few years to let the dust settle, the aristocratic inhabitants of Cáceres started building again, each palacio or casa more imposing than the last. So most of what you see is from this period that only lasted until around the end of the 16th Century by which time the riches from the Spanish colonies were drying up. Cáceres then slept undisturbed for 300 years untouched by events around until, in 1949 the place became Spain's first listed heritage city.
So, the real Cáceres. It is a city that was built to satisfy the vanity of a few noble families who deliberately removed all presence of what had gone before. People of lower orders were removed or kept outside the walls. It was, for its introverted inhabitants, a fantasy existence that offers the visitor today an opportunity to appreciate the vast gulf between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' during the 15th and 16th Centuries. You could imagine the atmosphere of the place being similar to the Queen's Court in 'Alice Through the Looking Glass', a total disregard for reality. But then, those nice yellow sandstone walls were actually maintained to keep reality on the outside and they still work.