Unsuspected Cáceres: seven places you would not expect to find
1. A GERMAN CEMETERY WITH THE FALLEN OF THE WORLD WARS
No, it is not that Extremadura was at any time part of the board of the battles that were intended to divide the world in the last century. It is simply that in this carpeted area, halfway between the monastery of Yuste and Cuacos de Yuste , the Teutonic government decided to join the bodies of the different soldiers who had died accidentally in Spanish territory as well as those corpses dragged to its coast.
The place is not accidental since it is located near the room where the great Hispanic-Germanic king Carlos V died and, on top of that, it has that romantic beauty of the fog and the solitude, of the meadow and the praying trees . On the green tapestry appear, symmetrically, the different crosses that mark the tombstones and that, since the 1980s, serve as a memorial and meeting point for their relatives. It is not in itself a tourist asset, **but it is true that its proximity to the most visited places in La Vera** makes people stop to browse and show their respect.
German cemetery in the middle of Vera
two. A PRITZKER IN GUADALUPE
Everything in this town revolves around the most famous virgin of Hispanic people. Or what is the same, everything is an extension of his fantastic monastery , either because they live off tourism or because they don't want to screech. Of course there are great artists signing works in this monument, with Zurbarán at the head giving a master class on sacred painting in his sacristy. However, contemporaneity also has its little hole thanks to the only Spanish Pritzker Prize.
rafael moneo He is responsible for the extensions that were made at the end of the 20th century in the great monastery. It is true that the aesthetic (and logical) restrictions required in defense of heritage did not give him much wings to pull out a reinvention of mudejar art , but he did leave some discreet brushstroke of his genius in the new dining room of the inn and on the access walkway to it. Small details such as the use of copper or the zigzag entrance claim the portion of modernity although perhaps Moneo's greatest achievement is that nothing squeaks and that the glory continues to be carried away by the rest of the impressive monastery.
A Pritzker in the Cathedral of Guadalupe
3. THE THYSSEN OF TOMORROW
The study of Spanish attracted the young Helga to Spain back in 1957. Then her love made her stay, she adopted a new surname and, since then, She will dedicate herself to collecting contemporary art like no one else in our country. The result of all this, in addition to popular and institutional merit and recognition, is the Helga de Alvear Foundation, a space to disseminate current visual arts in an anachronistic setting such as this modernist palace. Located among the friendliest bars in the Pizarro Street in Caceres , this museum surprises for that marriage between the popular of the terraces and the risky of the works that are exhibited inside. The center is for all audiences because it is not presumptuous but, above all, what he achieves is to specify in an old building remodeled by Mansilla + Tuñón everything that has been cooked in our country in recent decades.
For the diffusion of the visual arts
Four. THE SIAMESE CATHEDRALS
See that in Spain we have cathedrals for all tastes and with all kinds of 'accidents' in their construction, but Plasencia's takes the Oscar for its originality . Its most unusual milestone is that it is the union of two cathedrals, one Romanesque and one Gothic . While the most common thing is that in Spain these temples evolved in style over the centuries, here both currents directly coexist within the same block, but in very different spaces. That is, for each one its own construction.
East architectural collage It explains why, at the time, they decided that the best thing to do was to build a new cathedral for this town from scratch. The idea was to build a new one and tear down the old one, but since it took so long (financial issues) to finish the Gothic-Renaissance, the two shared walls and lights long enough to still stand today. And there is no intention to separate them. That's how they stayed as an authentic sampler of the prevailing styles in Castilian art, with its plateresque facades on the outside, its Romanesque sobriety at the beginning of the nave and with a disconcerting asymmetry throughout its visit.
Plasencia in two styles
5. FLUXUS BETWEEN BARRUECOS
Attention… drum roll… Tachan! Here we are before the one that, without any doubt, we could consider the largest pot of everything created in this country in recent centuries . everything comes from the union of the most deliberately avant-garde art and the routine customs of Extremadura . Or rather, the consequences of the German artist and friend of Dali Wolf Vostell fell in love with a young woman from Malpartida de Cáceres. On one of his visits to the town of his wife, the German creator was dazzled by a place called Los Barruecos where large granite balls lie scattered on the grass. Good old Wolf proclaimed this geological and landscape rarity ‘Nature’s Work of Art’ , a space that inspired him not only to teach, but also to erect two sculptures in the open air, somewhat inexplicable as they are 'VOAEX' and 'The dead man who is thirsty'.
This was the starting point of what is now a museum where that topicazo of “Avant-garde mix with tradition” falls short. Both outside and in the different rooms of the old house there are works by this artist, creator of the Decollage trend and one of the greatest exponents of video art and Happening. Among all that is exposed here, Dalí's signature stands out, since here, the one who was his good friend, materialized one of his ideas: the curtain called "The end of Parzival" . The rest is a superb tribute to this artist, to the automobile as an icon and sculptural element, and to Fluxus, the umpteenth interdisciplinary current that seeks total art and inherits the same random spirit of Dada art. The collection of this current that Gino di Maggio donated It is one of the largest in the world and a more than surreal climax to this psychotropic-artistic journey through a farrowing house.
Fluxus in Barruecos
6. THE REAL GHOST TOWN
As much as in the village where you spend the summer there is not a soul on January 22, the most genuine ghost town in the entire Peninsula is in Cáceres. Passion fruit It is the result of one of the many Francoist reservoirs, in this case that of Gabriel y Galán. Although the water was never going to touch the houses, in order to improve his health, the government at that time ordered the eviction of the town and the expropriation of its property from its neighbors (compensation included). The consequence, more than half a century later, is that of a set of abandoned but intact houses and streets, a trip Cuéntame total where a very outstanding heritage is added to the anecdote, with a palatial court castle as the tip of the iceberg.
Granadilla, the real ghost town
7. THE ROMANESQUE TOWER OF ATHLETIC DE BILBAO
After the most ostentatious and prolific trip to the Renaissance that involves crowning the slopes of Trujillo, the lofty Julia tower of the church of Santa María la Mayor demands attention. It is a beautiful Romanesque lighthouse, a construction so fine that at times it transports this Tuscany and that stately Lombardy. However, in one of the vertices that crown the construction, a noble shield appears, but in the most literal sense of the word. And it is that it does not represent any of the most important aristocratic houses in Spain, but it is the emblem of Athletic Bilbao. His explanation is not based on a 12th-century visionary but rather on a sly stonemason who, during the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the building, allowed himself the luxury of showing his unconditional love for this team with a small, sympathetic and non-invasive wink. In fact, very good eyesight and/or a telephoto lens are required to distinguish its shape.
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The hidden shield of Athletic Bilbao