Alfonso VIII found out about this singular condition when he tried to occupy it in 1177, adding it to the kingdom of Castile and converting it to Christianity; after a nine-month siege, it was its dwellers’ hunger, rather than its walls, that opened up to him. He led his army into it through the gate that would be called Puerta de San Juan. Castilian Cuenca was then filled with new religious meanings.
The mosque was thereby transformed into the Cathedral, the Romanesque style was replaced by the Gothic one, and churches and convents were erected in honour of the Christian God. And undoubtedly with his complicity, its inhabitants undertook the task of domesticating the crags and heights, finally producing the unique architecture of their houses hanging above the abysm. The old city surpassed its natural border, making the air its landscape, thereafter descending to cross the Huécar and extend into the plateau of La Mancha.
Cuenca’s Historical Quarter and its centuries-old neighbourhoods around about it still have the same appearance today as the one they acquired back then. Many of its most noble buildings preserve their original status: convents in which the strict silence of their cloistered nuns still prevails, churches in which the believers’ faith is renewed day after day, large houses bearing coats of arms that keep the past alive, the arcaded Town Hall whose arches lead into Plaza Mayor. |
Others have been designed to preserve their incomparable historical and artistic heritage: these include, among many others, the Provincial Archives, which previously housed a prison and the Holy Office; the Diocesan Museum, next to the Archbishop’s Palace, the Abstract Art Museum (in the most beautiful of the “hanging houses”) and the Antonio Pérez Foundation, in what used to be a convent of Carmelite nuns. All of them deserve, per se, the visitor’s attentive and sensitive look; not often will you find, and be able to see, so many testimonies to human creativity of such high value.
Wandering around its steep and narrow streets, visiting its secluded corners, quenching your thirst at its drinking fountains, sharing the magical atmosphere of its squares with the ever-pleasant locals and going down the hills to find the new city, growing rapidly and openly into the future, will be an unforgettable experience that will oblige visitors to return.
They will have left behind friends –that is a certainty- who will be happy at the reencounter. They will probably celebrate by inviting them to taste some of the region’s gastronomic delicacies –morteruelo, ajoarriero, zarajos, alajú- and drink a toast with excellent wine from La Mancha. Cheers!
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