Tag:

Extremadura

The Royal Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe | Extremadura, Spain (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez July 24, 2017

Continuing now with another set of photographs from our family trip to Spain back in late May. If you missed the previous posts (and there’s really no good excuse to have done so, SUBSCRIBE HERE), we started in Madrid, made our way NW over to the spectacular Walls of Ávila, continued 154 km SW to our first stop in Extremadura, the city of Plasencia, and then a short drive south through Monfragüe National Park, the largest and best preserved Mediterranean forest worldwide, and then to the medieval city of Trujillo, a short 40 minute drive south.

All caught up? Good.

Our next stop was Guadalupe, a historic village set on the foothill of Sierra de Altamira and just over an hour drive east from Trujillo. It is home to the Royal Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993 and was one of the most important monasteries in the country for more than four centuries.

The monastery had its origins in the late 13th century, when a shepherd from Cáceres, named Gil Cordero, discovered on the bank of the Guadalupe River a statue of the Blessed Virgin, which had been apparently hidden by local inhabitants from Moorish invaders in 714. On the site of his discovery a chapel was built, dedicated under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

King Alfonso XI, who visited the chapel more than once, invoked Santa Maria de Guadalupe in the Battle of Rio Salado. After gaining the victory, he ascribed it to the Madonna’s intercession, declared the church at Guadalupe a royal sanctuary and undertook an extensive rebuilding program.

In 1389, the Hieronymite monks took over the monastery and made it their principal house. It remained the most important cloister in Spain until the Confiscation of monasteries in 1835 (the Spanish government’s seizure and sale of property, including from the Catholic Church, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century, to obtain money to pay off the public debt securities). In the 20th century, the Royal Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was revived by the Franciscan Order and Pope Pius XII declared the shrine a “Minor Papal Basilica” in 1955.

We didn’t have the time for the 5 euro tour of the monastery (which I hear is pretty awesome) but I did shoot several photographs outside and inside this remarkable structure. Enjoy…

Behold! Royal Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe!

A few different looks from outside the monastery…

View of the Plaza de Santa María from the top steps of the monastery…

The altarpiece in the main church contains sculptures by Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli, the son of Doménikos Theotokópoulos, painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance most widely known as “El Greco” (“The Greek”)

From the altar looking to the back wall of the main church…

Views from inside the main church…

Back outside, here’s another view of the plaza from the top steps…

In the central Plaza de Santa María, the fountain of Tres Caños is where the first Indians brought by Columbus from his second journey to America were baptized.

More photos of our trip to Extremadura, Spain forthcoming so please SUBSCRIBE HERE to our blog so you won’t miss a future post. You won’t be sorry. Promise…

July 24, 2017

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

The Magical City of Trujillo | Extremadura, Spain (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez July 18, 2017

written by Dan Perez

Have you been following our journey around Spain? If you have, then you know that I took the family to Spain back in late May and started in Madrid, made our way NW over to the spectacular Walls of Ávila, continued 154 km SW to our first stop in Extremadura, the city of Plasencia, and then a short drive south through Monfragüe National Park, the largest and best preserved Mediterranean forest worldwide. So, our next stop on our Extremadura itinerary was the medieval city of Trujillo, a short 40 minute drive south.

Trujillo is one of the oldest cities in Spain being formally established by the Romans in 206 BCE. It has been inhabited by Romans, Visigoths, Muslims and Jews before being passed into Christian hands after being conquered in 1232 by King Fernando III. It was monarch Juan II that gave Trujillo the title of city in 1430.

In the 16th century, Trujillo experienced an age of great splendor due to its important role in the discovery of America. The city was the home of two great conquerors: Francisco de Pizarro, discoverer of Peru, and Francisco de Orellana who discovered the Amazon River and founded the city of Guayaquil in what is now Ecuador.

The city is structured around the monumental Plaza Mayor square, which is presided over by a bronze-cast statue of Pizarro on horseback. Over the centuries it has been the center of social and commercial life of the city. On our first night in Trujillo, we had dinner in the Plaza with a starter dish of jamón ibérico (Iberian ham), a type of cured ham made from free-range black Iberian pigs that is especially popular in the Extremadura region of Spain and Portugal. Just sitting outside in that historic plaza as the sun began to set, the sky bustling with wheeling packs of small birds (Common and Pallid Swifts) flying from one historic building to the next across the plaza (a common sight in every city we visited in Extremadura), made for a truly magical evening.

Trujillo is a city you shouldn’t miss – here are a few photographs I took walking the Plaza Mayor. Oh, and they just seemed to work best in black and white, enjoy…

A 19-ft. high equestrian statue of Francisco de Pizarro, by American sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey (1879–1922), is the centerpiece of Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor. The sculpture was exhibited in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific Exposition held in San Francisco to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. After Rumsey’s death in 1922, his widow presented the sculpture to the city of Trujillo in 1925.

Adjacent to the sculpture of Pizarro is Church of San Martín. Its construction began in the fourteenth century and continued for more than a century, and was completed with important modifications on its initial trace during the second half of the sixteenth century, around 1564.

Atop the Church of San Martín and just about every other high point of the plaza, storks make their homes…

Statue of Don Ramón Núñez Martín, “Adopted Son of Trujillo”, adorns the Plaza outside the Church of San Martín. Núñez was a priest in Trujillo for 46 years before passing away in 2012 at the age of 92. The statue, by sculptor Ricardo García Lozano, was unveiled at the Plaza in a special ceremony on October 2012.

Dinner crowd starting to arrive at the Plaza…

Palacio del Marqués de la Conquista began to be built in 1562 by master stonesman Sancho de Cabrera. Among its architectural elements stands out a huge balcony in one of its corners crowned by an immense shield flanked by the arms of Carlos V.

Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor – put this place on your list of places to visit in Spain. Learn more about visiting Trujillo at www.turismoextremadura.com

July 18, 2017

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

Monfragüe National Park, UNESCO Biosphere Reserve | Extremadura, Spain (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez July 13, 2017

written by Dan Perez

If you’ve been following our blog (and there’s no good reason why you shouldn’t be), you’d know that last month I took the family on a vacation to Spain. Our goal was to explore Extremadura, a western Spanish region bordering Portugal. So after a few days in Madrid, we began our journey west first stopping at the magnificent Walls of Ávila, then continuing SW to our first stop in the Extremadura region, the city of Plasencia.

Now, our next stop was a 40 minute drive south to Monfragüe National Park, the largest and best preserved Mediterranean forest worldwide. The park, which occupies an area of 18.118 hectares (2.471 acres = 1 hectare) and is surrounded by the Tagus and Tiétar rivers, is situated in the center of a triangle formed by Plasencia, Trujillo and the city of Cáceres (every one of which was on my travel itinerary).

Monfragüe was declared a Biosphere Reserve (areas of terrestrial and coastal ecosystems that promote solutions to reconcile the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use) by UNESCO in 2003 and is one of the most popular birdwatching sites in all of Spain with black storks, vultures, Egyptian vultures and imperial eagles making their nests in the cliffs. In particular, about 250 black vulture couples nest here making it the greatest black vulture reserve in the world.

Within the park there is only one town, Villarreal de San Carlos, a municipality of Serradilla, which is small and completely connected to the park, accommodating the visitor centre and centre of interpretation. There are numerous winding roads and color-marked routes (some of them 3 hours long) that can be driven by car as well as several hiking trails. It would have been best to have hired a tour guide but being that we were on a pretty tight itinerary, we just drove through the park on our way down to our next stop, the city of Trujillo.

Here are a few photographs I shot as we drove the winding roads of Monfragüe National Park, a must-see attraction in Extremadura…

The most symbolic and most-photographed spot in Monfragüe is the incredible rocky cliff of the Salto del Gitano (whose name is derived from a legend of a gypsy robber who jumped over the Tagus River from the highest stone to the next to avoid capture from the Civil Guard).

The castle of Monfragüe is a ruined fortress located in the heart of the Monfragüe National Park. The Arabs conquered these lands in the year 713, and called them Al-Mofrag which means “the abyss”. They built the fortress in 811 with five towers and two perimeters of walls. Through the years, this watchtower has been used by Celtic, Roman, Arab and Christian orders as one of the main defensive points due to the privileged location of the hill on which it rises, just over the Steep and rugged terrain that originates on the banks of the Tagus River. What is visible today are remnants of multiple restorations after military orders conquered it for King Alfonso VIII, with a round tower from the twelfth century and a pentagonal one from the fifteenth century.

Views from the lookout area near the castle of Monfragüe are stunning…

Going back down the stairs from the castle to our car was a bit easier than going up. Just a bit.

We will one day return to this remarkable national park and we’ll make sure we get a tour guide and spend a full day. Visit turismoextremadura.com for more information on Monfragüe National Park as well as the beautiful region of Extremadura.

July 13, 2017

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

The Ancient Cathedrals of Plasencia | Extremadura, Spain (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez June 25, 2017

written by Dan Perez

If you’ve been following this blog (and why wouldn’t you be?), you probably know that I took the family on a vacation to Spain last month with the goal of visiting the historic Extremadura region of this remarkable country. Our first stop from Miami was Madrid and then 108 km NW to the medieval city of Ávila. From Ávila, we continued 154 km SW on the scenic N-110 to our first stop in Extremadura, the city of Plasencia.

We arrived late and tired and checked in at the charming Hotel Exe Alfonso VIII. We then ventured out for a late dinner at Plasencia’s Plaza Mayor, the city’s main square. Plasencia was inhabited by Romans and Arabs until the 12th century, when King Alfonso VIII reconquered it. I was only able to spend a few hours the next morning in the main square and I shot a few images of the cathedral, which actually consists of two buildings which are built back to back: the “old” (Catedral Vieja) and the “new” (Catedral Nueva).

Construction on the “old cathedral” began in the 13th-century in a mostly Romanesque style. The 15th-century New Cathedral of Plasencia (or Catedral de Asunción de Nuestra Señora) was built in Gothic architectural style with high ceilings. Alas, I didn’t have time to go inside (a shame because the old cathedral contains a museum featuring the works of Jusepe de Ribera, a 15th century Spanish Tenebrist painter and printmaker) or stray too far from the Plaza due to a tight itinerary that day. Due to its location, however, Plasencia makes for an excellent first (or last) stop on your Extremadura itinerary.

Plasencia’s charming Plaza Mayor on a glorious morning…

Images from Plasencia’s “New Cathedral”

Bell tower behind the new cathedral…

Here’s the front of the smaller “Old Cathedral” to the right of the newer cathedral. The harsh sun limited my composition options (never forget to pack your lens hood!)

Top of the western façade behind the original church…

Walking the streets of Plasencia’s old town…

One last look at the Cathedral from our hotel on Avenida Alfonso VIII

Our next stop was about a 30 minute drive to Monfragüe National Park. Check for the photographs in my next post…

June 25, 2017