Day 11: Caceres

February 28, 2025

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It is said that Caceres has the third largest number of monumental structures (towers, palaces, churches, and the like) in Europe. Presumably all of them are squeezed onto the map handed out at Tourist Information, which you see below.

The print that links names to the numbers on the map is really fine, and we could just barely make it out. But even if we can read all the stuff, it does not mean that we understand what it all is. Fortunately all we have to do on a one day visit is to locate a few things, and then to just absorb the ambiance of the whole thing. We did that, and I think I can easily explain it. After that, we can look at a bunch of ambiance type photos!

The main buildings of the old city lie within the mostly intact remnants of the wall, which is shown in yellow below.

The main square, or Plaza Mayor lies just outside the wall. The city is "above" the Plaza on the map (seemingly North), but in fact the map does not have north up. Not a problem, unless you are a stickler (like Dodie!) that brought a compass.

You enter the city from the Plaza Mayor through one of the gates, the Arco de la Estrella. From there, for a small fee, one can climb the first tower, the Torre de Bujaco. There were lots of tower climbs this day, and Dodie both encouraged me to climb them all, while coyly remaining below. I am not complaining, just saying!

Entering the old city from the Plaza Mayor, one is plunged into streets and streets of atmospheric stone buildings.

The tour begins. Don't drop that camera!

From atop the tower, one can shoot at the Moors, or the Christians, or whomever.

This is a view from the tower of a part of the town not within the wall.

This view from the tower shows buildings in the city. The two main landmarks show up here: the church with the two white towers is San Francisco Javier, and to its left is the cathedral, Santa Maria.

Here is a view from the tower down to the Plaza Mayor.

The steps down from the tower. This one was not scary.

At a convent along the way, nuns prepare sweets for sale. But they won't talk to or look at you, so the transaction takes place through a revolving shelf arrangement. The nuns, in this, may be lost in the middle ages, but they still take VISA!

In the church this is much attention to church history, including a timeline display, showing the Popes and major events since the year more or less zero. I found it amazing that so much history is known, and that it could be assembled in this way. I walked to the end, so as to find Fransciso, one of my favourites (and now sadly very ill).

Returning to about 900 a.d., I was interested to see how many Popes they ran through in short expanses of time.

Anyway, enough delay, it was time to climb one of the two towers.

Looking at the town in another direction

Views of the church interior, while descending from a tower.

Next stop, the Cathedral

The child's guide to Caceres was on sale. We like these in general, but this was in Spanish.

This altar piece, or retablo, had many bible scenes carved in wood.

There was information about each scene - too complicated for us!

Mary is usually portrayed as in tears in Spain

When we bought the ticket to climb the first tower, we got a combo, allowing admission to another one on the other side of town. We set off now to find this. It had some added interest because it was in the Jewish quarter. There were actually two Jewish quarters, according to a pamphlet we picked up. One was inside the walls and the other near the Plaza Mayor.

Ah yes, the sign deals with the various Jewish communities of the region.

The Jewish section was a series of buildings, or "bulwarks" (baluartes) along one edger of town. Our tower climb was part of one of these buildings.

There were three towers in this section. The photo looks down to the remains of one.

Buildings of the Jewish section, along the edge of town, if I have this right.

As we made our walk around, we encountered on the one hand school kids gaily dressed up for some kind of special day, and on the other, women dressed alike in grey. We are not sure if this was all the same festivity, or two. Certainly there was something going on called Las Lavanderas - the washerwomen, and there also may have been a carnival starting.

Another festival coming up is Semana Santa - the time of the big parades of penitents in hoods. We will miss it this time - begins only in April.

Caceres is also known for a few different types of birds that like its high towers. Here for example is a Crag Martin:

There were also a lot of Jackdaws, Magpies, and Starlings:

Searching out these birds was not without risk. At least one seemed to react to my presence. Fortunately Dodie found a napkin to save the day!:

Now that's rude! But the Jackdaw and the Crag Martin bring us to 107 species for the year.

Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 182 km (113 miles)

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