Caceres--Close-down Week One

During the first week of the January close-down we decided to visit Extremadura, a fascinating area of Spain nestled against the border with Portugal.  Our neighbor Aquilino Duarte had talked about the cities of Caceres, Merida and his city of Badajos.

Many of the cities we visit have vibrant and interesting newer sections, but we tend to focus more on their "casco historico", or historic center.  According to Wikipedia, Caceres was made a World Heritage City by UNESCO because of  "its blend of Roman, Moorish, Northern Gothic and Italian Renaissance architcture."  There are still over 30 buildings from its Moorish or Islamic period, and the old city center is often used in movies set in the 13 and 14th centuries because it is essentially unchanged.  We were able to find a hostal in Caceres right on the Plaza Mayor, just across from one of the entrances to the 14th Century city center.  We hadn't realized our hostal was a fourth floor walk-up, but that is another story.  It had a great view!

Walls of the old city from our window across the Plaza Mayor
(Note the wire Christmas Tree still standing in mid January on the right.)

A 13th century cathedral

Greg was standing in the bell tower under one of the eight huge bells when they began tolling.

A convent garden in the rain.

Roman walls in the old city

A room in the Moorish House Museum, a private home restored to its 11th century splendor.

A funny incident happened in Caceres: on a cold a rainy day a TV announcer and her cameraman happened to be in one of the plazas in the old city and asked us how we liked Caceres.  That night it must have been on the news, because as we were dragging our bags to the train station the next morning a couple of policemen stopped us to ask us if we were the couple who had been on national TV--our 15 seconds of fame.