Towns and places to visit from Finca Santa Marta

A visit to the main square of Trujillo, 14 kms away

Janes A. Mitchener writes in "Iberia"  (1968) his guide to Trujillo talking: "It's the plaza that counts"... we stood there for a long time as he pointed out the features of this architectural gem, so beautiful and compact that it should be preserved as a kind of museum. "'Look up at the the old castle, marvelously preserved. Imagine it in 1470 when the famous gentleman of these parts, Gonzalo Pizarro, used to prowl these streets on romantic forays. He sired a chain of illegitimate sons the most famous of which was Francisco, who left here to conquer Peru (in his fifties). In the background, a chain of fortified churches. That side of the plaza is composed of flights of stairs interlocking at different angles.We used to block off the plaza and hold great bullfights.The pillared arcades are necessary in Trujillo because of the noonday heat. That large house over there with the huge iron chain across the front? It dates back to the 12th century and belonged to a nobleman who befriended Emperor Carlos Quinto, who stopped here on his way to marry Isabel of Portugal in 1526. The chain indicates that Carlos granted immunity from taxes to the owner. It belonged to the Orellana family, one of whom discovered the Amazon. That house over there is more famous. The big shield indicates the Pizarro family. Long after the conquest Pizarro's descendants took the title of Marques de la Conquista."

The statue on horseback, Mitchener's guide-friend continues, is Pizarro as conquistador, "sculpted either by the wife or the daughter of the famous Spanish expert from New York, Archer M.Huntingon." (It is traditionally commented that it was meant to represent Hernan Cortes, the discoverer of Mexico, but as the Mexicans rejected the statue of a conquistador, it was baptised as Pizarro. Its sister statue stands on the Plaza of Lima, Peru)

"I lost my heart," writes Mitchener, "to a small building tucked away in a corner beyond the Pizarro palace and now serving as the town hall (presently as Court of Justice). Its facade consists of three tiers of arches each of the same width but diminishing in height, so that the top ones were very wide and flat...and the bottom one wide and tall. The combination was unique and vivacious. And during all the time I was in Trujillo I looked back to that buidling, one of the most charming things I saw in Spain".

A visit to Medellin, 50 kms from Trujillo, off the motorway to Merida

Again, Mitchener ("Iberia", 1968):

"Medellin stands in a bleak landscape commanded a low hill on which cowers a crumbling castle....Here is Extreamdura at its most unforgiving yet this little town is a shrine to which a few devoted travelers come each year from overseas to pay homage to one of the molders of history: Hernan Cortes, conqueror of Mexico and archtype of conquistador.Born of poor parents and foreseeing no opportunity in a village where whatever family happened to control the castle, Cortes struck out for the new world where his harsh Extremaduran training enabled him with a bare handful of men like himself, to conquer the Aztec empire...

The richness of Medellin, her men, was exported and nothing came back. No nation in history ever won so much wealth for itself as did Spain in that half-century from 1520-1570 nor did any nation retain so little for itself. Gold came by the shipload  from Mexico and Peru, paused briefly in Spain, and having accomplished nothing, sped on to Italy and the Low Countires....and today Medellin stands as one of the most mournful places in Europe".

Now in at the end of the nineties, Medellin boasts....
Well, why not see it for yourself !

A visit to the pueblo and mountain of Santa Cruz,  8 kms from Finca Santa Marta

Several centuries ago, the mansions of this proud little town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra displayed flourishing escucheons on their frontispieces.Nuflo de Chavez, one of the first founders of Bolivia, still boasts a modest palace (presently for sale) with the typical arched granite entrance.Today, the amiable Mayor, Andres Miguel, 17-years in active role, attempts to recover some of  the lost prestige of this now diminute village by making it more attractive to the few tourists that bother to exit the motorway a mile away (2 1/2 hours from Madrid). Nestling under the impressive mountain with its pyramid-like profile, and hosting the ruins of a huge and  age-old convent , save its stunning dome and crumbling walls of the monks' previous residence, Santa Cruz aspires to be more than a mere birth place of the 17 Santa Cruz towns of Central and South America which trace back their history to this quaint "pueblo".. South American embassy representatives gather every year on its Plaza to celebrate the ancestral origins, consuming the Extremadura speciality of "Pata Negra" ham and the strong regional "Pitarra" wine.

A visit to Guadalupe, 60 kms from Finca Santa Marta (following the same road Columbus took in 1491) From Karen Brown’s Guide Book on Country Inns in Spain:

Further on, fifty kilometers beyond Finca Santa Marta, through mountainous landscape and beautiful valleys, the traveller arrives at Guadalupe. "The tiny white village will take your breath away. Crowned by a golden fortified monastery, nestled in the shadow of its ancient ramparts"..the Monasatery has been a popular pilgrimage destination since Alfonso XI had a Hierononymite monastery built after his victory over the Moors at the Battle of Salado (14th Century). The Virgin of Guadalupe has become one of the most important figures in Spain and Spanish America. The agreement allowing Columbus’ expedition to the Americas was signed in Gudalupe, the name he gave to one of the Carribean islands (French now). "When he returned from his voyage with six American Indians, they were baptized here. A short time later, the Virgin appeared again to a Mexican peasant and she became the Patron Saint of Mexico".

The retrieved Virgin statue is attributed to St Luke, the evangelist. It was the statue that was paraded through Rome by order of  Pope Gregory in order to stem the plague of the 7th Century. It was then passed to Spain, but hurried up to the mountains when the Moors advanced.

Nicholas Hammond, editor of "Artists for Nature in Extremadura" (published by Inmerc, Netherlands) mentions painter Victoria Crowe, on Guadalupe (page 163): "The visit to the Monastery had a sense of high drama. The rich style of architecture with its Moorish influence, the tiled minarets...were to my eyes beautiful and unusual; a huge church with its vast altar screen of six or so layers whose only illumination is the case of the Black Madonna, about three meters above the altar.

We made the trip through the treasure of the monastery. Room after room of treasures, each richer, more cluttered, more highly decorated and even more bizarre than the one before. From the solemnity of the huge illuminated choir books, on wheels, to the embroidery rooms with vast capes and chasubles....Then there were the rooms of paintings including work by Goya and Zurbaran..The culmination of the tour was a totally decorated room with draped and painted female statuary, bedecked with jewellery..And then we saw the back of the Madonna. The tour had disorientated us and with a jump of understanding I saw we had somehow arrived at the back of that distant illuminated doll-like figure we had seen an hour before, high above the altar.In this last room our lay guide had been replaced by a franciscan Monk for the holiest part of the process. The enamels at the back of the shrine told the story of the discovery. It was obvious what was about to happen and the theatricality of the deliberate movement pivoting round the display so that we moved face-to-face with the distant Black Virgin was enhanced by the gasps of reverence from several of the Spanish visitors".

James A. Mitchener  writes in his book "Iberia":

"Finally in the vestry of the monastery, Don Pedro (the mayor) showed me the row of eight masterpieces painted by Francisco Zurbaran. If one does not see his work in this room, one misses his talent. His commission was one of those ordinary jobs which have defeated so many good painters : "Portraits of the leading friars of this Monastery". The Hieronymites chosen were all of advanced age and position, mostly bold and of monotonous history, but what Zurbaran accomplished with them is well-nigh miraculous...For me the apex of the series was the third picture on the left-hand wall.It showed Zurbaran at his best. It was the portrait of Father Illescas, a political priest who ruled Guadalupe and later Cordoba. His cluttered desk provided an opportunity for one of Zurbaran’s great still lifes. The figure of the Hieronymite became the occasion for a splendid hard-edge portrait of uncompromising intensity..."

Then there is the "the lamp suspended from the ceiling.It was brought here by Don Juan de Austria fter the Virgin gave him victory at the Battle of Lepanto.It was captured from a turkish galleon."

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