duminică, 23 octombrie 2011

Los Santos de Maimona, Extremadura, Spain, Day #2 - GAUDI inside!

In the morning, Bogdan suggested that we should see two cities, South of Merida: Zafra and Jerez de los Caballeros. Well, we went on the highway to South, than took right to Zafra, and stopped in the very first city we saw: Los Santos de Maimona, where I was attracted by the beautiful tower of the church, seen from the road. So, we suddenly decided to leave the road and have a closer look at the tower.

This, I might say, is our traveling style, wandering from here to there, trying not to miss the essential, but always open to anything out of ordinary.

The first surprise it was placed right on the entrance in the city, in the first roundabout: a beautiful floral monument, from concrete and faience, in Gaudi's style.


I found out the city's modern history started in year 50 A.C., when the romans settled here and built the roads linking Merida of Seville. In 712 the city was conquered by the Muslims, and one of the 7 berberian tribes, called "Banu Maimun", gave its name to the city. In 1240, the Christians took it back from the Muslims, and in the 16th century has reached maximum of prosperity. Many of the beautiful monuments, as the church we saw from the road, were built in that flourishing period of time.

We noticed, on the top of the tower, a stork's nest. It was the first from a very long raw of stork's nests we saw today, please check out on top of EVERY church you'll see in the next days, it's unbelievable!







But the greatest place of all was right at the exit from the city, we saw it from the main road and we thought is a park or something like that. For kids, anyway. Of course, we turned back the car and went to satisfy our curiosity. Well... it was a home, an unbelievable home, in building process, and guess what? The owner was just outside the building and gave us permission to visit it!

You will easily recognize Gaudi's style, is a place like in fairy-tales, with concrete and faience flowers on the roof and leaves and snakes and other nature elements all over the place. In the backyard an artisan was completing another elements for the house, he left us speechless while admiring his art.













We found this place absolutely unbelievable,  first because is so far from Gaudi's Barcelona, and second, because its incredible beauty and imaginative architecture! We had a theory that the owner might be one of the wealthy local wine producers, but we can't verify that :)

Stay tuned for the next stop: Zafra!

Un comentariu:

Ann spunea...

I'm actually from there, and no, the owner is just someone who wanted to have a house like that. He builds it in his spare time, and he's been building it for several years.
He's also the autor of the two roundabouts (I don't think you saw the other one, it has snails and daisies) that you liked. He donated them to the town.