CUENCA: The Medieval Manhattan

I'm going to hazard a guess that you've never heard of Cuenca (unless, of course, you're Spanish). Gus and I visited this weekend, and I'm now lovestruck and starry-eyed. I took 477 pictures, a few of which will tell the story here with me.

Half the town's had some brush with art school, and I think it's been that way since the 14th Century. The old town, the reason you're coming here, sits on a high and narrow slice between two rivers. The signature architectural wonders of the old town are the magnificient Casas Colgadas, or Hanging Houses. These were built into and out over the high rock faces overlooking the gorge, facing one river.

Like Manhattan, the penned-in Cuenca could not build out so much as build up, so there are these high-rise Hanging Houses, as well as quite tall dwellings winding throughout the old town. The bridge called Puente de San Pablo gives a spectacular approach over the river and up to the most famous of remaining Casas. Another way to see them is from the very top of the town, the highest point.

 Also, from the narrow roads within the old town, you can come upon these Casas almost without knowing it, and tour the inside of one that happens to be the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español.

The juxtaposition of the building's site and design with the stark, earthily modern interior and massive collection of Spanish contemporary painting and sculpture (mainly from the 1950's and 1960's) - well, it was stunning.

Watch as Gus does an interpretive dance to describe this contrast.  

 Also very cool is how the interior of this museum echoes the up and down, winding quality of the old town, within its stark galleries.




I have to say more about the setting for these Casas Colgadas, the old town itself.









It's seriously steep, making both Toledo and Granada mere training grounds as far as endurance tourism goes.





There are staircases up, down, all around.









Maps will show two parallel streets. Let's say you're on one, and the restaurant in which you'd like to eat is on the other.

This requires navigating an Escher-like dreamscape full of stairs that seem to be going up, then appear to be going down, then disappear out of sight around a corner, through an archway, in to an alley,

going down, or up? yeah...

...then it's nighttime...

...and you're faced with a glowing and magnificent view, or it's daytime ...

and the walls seem to boil pools of color onto their surfaces, and a window appears...and then you find your restaurant...and it is good.

That's me eating Morteruelo, a kind of pâté made of different kinds of meat, mainly hare, partridge, hen and pork. And it is good! 




Hey, and my friends with lots of camping and hiking experience know this to be true - the harder it is to get somewhere, the more well respected and better preserved the target site ends up being. True also of Cuenca because, though city and tour buses climb the big hill to deposit tourists atop, it is absolutely not catering to those unwilling or able to work for its beauty.

Also laudable is Cuenca's - hm, what to call it, I guess urban planning? site design? Well, whatever, it seems that it just got its tourism wings only in the last two decades or so, and whomever was on the committees to keep things gorgeous gets high praise. The unobtrusive and unpatronizing signage make me happy. The lack of self-promoting banners with tons of loud logos is a joyful relief.  And the lack of meandering herds of unhappy-to-be-there tour groups is killer. Upshot, even the tourists kinda look good.

And the drunk gyspy guys playing guitar in front of the little convenience store are in tune, and worth a beer donation and a conversation or three.


 That's Gus in the middle there, being told how healthy he looks.









When I leave a museum, everything ends up looking like art - you know, that eye adjustment which is fun for about 30 minutes. Cuenca's a bit manipulative because it does the same without itself being a museum. It's just presenting itself as art, everywhere, all the time.


Everything from windows, walls, trash cans, all fall together in a kind of harmony that shows there was a hand in it, one that cared. That's what I meant by the art school comment.  

You can sense the "hand" in a lot of things, from wall repair to the benign neglect that allows age to manifest as beauty. 

   Oh,  and lest I forget, there's street art aplenty but without the subversive, desecrating instinct of what I saw in Toledo. Here in Cuenca it's a lot more like site-specific installations, for the most part respectfully placed and complementary.

 Oh, I could say a lot more, maybe I'll add to this. Maybe things about the hostel we stayed it (utterly recommendable, "Hostal de la Luz"), with a host who reminded me of Iggy Pop and Gus of Klaus Kinski. I ended up thinking of him as Iggy Kinski. And about visiting with Gus's good friend Yola, who's maybe living here now.

 this trip brought to you by Nolotil.

Or how I was constantly battling the familiar knee pain...

or how Gus learned to combat allergies with my girly sunglasses ...


                                       Gus showing pollen who's the tough guy:




Oh,  there's always just so much to talk about. But this trip really is better told in pictures. See for yourself, because the real experience of Cuenca was around its every corner, and up every down staircase.



Photo at right, and all photos of me, by Gus


PS - did you think you'd get away without a mention of the famous language barrier? Think again, but since you've made it all the way to the end of this very long post, you get a special treat. "I said you're so photogenic, you thought I said what?"