You just have to put your ear to the thick walls that support this city to hear exciting stories. Stories that speak of a land of ancestry, rich in conquerors. Of privileges and privileges received in the Middle Ages. Of the wealth that came with the promise of the New World. Even certain scenes, as epic as they are fantastic, from the successful series Game of Thrones.
Cáceres treasures all this among its ancient stones. Pages from a past that invites you to read in time, to get lost in a frozen corner in an eternal moment. Here, in the most beautiful of Extremadura’s towns, everyday life bears the weight of history without ceasing to appear permeable to modernity.
Needless to say, it is in the twists and turns of its old part, in its medieval urban fabric, where this city, capital of the province of the same name, best exhibits its charm. Because it may seem like a categorical statement, but the historic center of Cáceres, declared a world heritage site in 1986, is one of the best preserved in the world.
In this beautiful place, already inhabited in the remote Paleolithic, Castra Caecilia or Norba Caeserina was founded twenty-five years before the birth of Christ. For centuries, both names were used to refer to this location that was on the Via de la Plata, the famous imperial road that crossed Iberia from north to south.
The old town summarizes the eventful history of Cáceres: the Roman basement, the Almohad wall, the towers from the 12th to 15th centuries, the 18th-century hermitage, the 19th-century Town Hall… A strange mix that, however, is uniform. Nothing surprises more than the harmony of this ensemble, something extraordinary if we take into account the difference in age of the monuments and the disparity in styles: from Romanesque to Baroque, from Renaissance to Gothic.
Cáceres must be discovered from the Plaza Mayor, which was once a hubbub of vociferous merchants, a meeting center for the town, a focus for holding tournaments and bullfights. Today, a long time later, it is still the place where everything happens. And its arcades, as in the origins, still house shops, craft workshops, wineries and restaurants.
Thus, at a slow pace, the milestones of the monumental core appear. The famous Arch of the Star, where Isabel of Castile decided to eliminate the battlements of all the towers, except for the House of the Storks, whose tower stands out over the roofs as a reward for her loyalty. Also the cistern of Muslim heritage, which today can be visited in the Cáceres Museum, inside the Las Veletas palace. Or the church of San Mateo, built on the ruins of what had been the mosque, and that of Santa María, with the category of co-cathedral, built when the city definitively fell under Christian power.
Added to all this are the details that show the wealth that reached beyond the seas: from the medallions with an Aztec princess and an Araucanian Indian that rest on the façade of the Renaissance episcopal palace to the Toledo-Moctezuma palace, which belonged to the daughter of Moctezuma II himself, married to a nobleman from Cáceres who had gone to visit the Americas.
Cáceres, which manages to open its intimacy within the duration of a walk, also hides a facet that complements its tradition: gusts of avant-garde blow to make their way through the stone beauty. Many don’t know it, but this city exhibits the largest private collection of contemporary art in Europe.
We find it in the Helga de Alvear Museum, open in 2021. A center that houses the personal collection of one of the most prestigious gallery owners of the moment, with works never before seen in our country. Artists of the caliber of Olafur Eliasson, Louise Bourgeois, Ai Weiwei and Doris Salcedo share space with unavoidable names such as Picasso, Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Antoni Tàpies.
And they do it in a magnificent building designed by Emilio Tuñón, who has been a candidate for the Mies Van der Rohe awards for European architecture. No less than 3,000 m2 of exhibition space (and almost 8,000 m2 of surface) serve as a framework for the legacy of this German dealer, who is committed to photography, large-format paintings and such groundbreaking disciplines as installations and video art.
With the Helga de Alvear Museum, Cáceres traces a route of contemporary art that advances about 14 kilometers to reach the now legendary Vostell Museum. This quirky art gallery, located in the town of Malpartida, is a must-see on the international art scene. What does it consist of? Basically, in the display of originality of Wolf Vostell, one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century, founder of the controversial Fluxus movement. Pieces that make up a universe committed to society and that are fundamental to understanding the paradoxes of modern man.
