A few more things about our time in Cáceres and then we will move on, I promise.
The Museum of Cáceres was very interesting - in an old palace, the 15th C Casa de las Veletas, focusing on the cultural heritage of the province of Extremadura - first human presence in Paleolithic times, to the Phoenicians, Romans and Visigoths through Christian times. Some sections were closed but we managed to forge through the Paleolithic, Neolithic and Megalithism, the Age of Metels, the Second Iron Age, Roman Times and Late Antiquity. There were some good views from the museum windows where the glass and reflection made them look a bit like paintings..
Before being converted to a palace, the building was a Moorish citadel. All that remains is the water cistern underneath the museum. Built by Berber Muslims between the 9th and 11th C, it is apparently one of the largest and best-preserved on the Iberian peninsula. It has Arab-style horseshoe arches resting on a waterproof floor.
A few of my favourite exhibits, including beautiful gold jewellery:
There was also some contemporary art mixed in that I liked, these first ones reminding me of aqueducts:
There was a video playing that seemed to be about agriculture in Spain in times past and I thought about people and animals plowing those vast fields we have been seeing with these most rudimentary of tools.
And there were exhibits of traditional festival costumes along with photos of them in the streets in times past.
On our last day there, we stopped at the recommended Churreria in our Ruta de La Plata book. We got a bit addicted to churros on Cozumel and had a favourite seller we would go to in the evening. Here they seem to be more of a morning thing, so on our way to our new hotel we had one order of these deep-fried artery-hardening goodies, that you can dip in either chocolate or coffee. We opted for chocolate. You would not want to make a habit of these!
I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, partly in an old building and partly in a new space. Jim opted to stay outside with the bikes.
Surprisingly, there was no charge. I was quite thrilled to be greeted by a Ai WeiWei sculpture (China) called Decending Light (2007). It was a huge metal and red glass bead chandelier, lit with LED lights lying on its side on the floor. The artist’s notes says it is a metaphor “ for the whole rotten image of the old power structure, and the riches and power concentrated in the hands of an elite that was being forced out.” We wish….
There were a couple of works by a Canadian artist, Marcel Dzama - this one is called “Looks Like I’ll Fly Back to Canada” (2017), which kind of echoed my feeling at the time, having hit my usual 6 week wall, wishing I could go home. (I’m over it now.)
These were some other ones I liked.
This installation was a bit of a surprise. It consisted of a white room with an LED clock on the wall and a white desk. You could see just under the desk what looked like some black fur. I walked in and as I came around the desk, the black fur materialized into the most life-like small gorilla who moved and made noises when you made noises - which I did - I shrieked.
And this was a big hanging sculpture made of coloured Venetian blinds.
The last thing I photographed before leaving was this view the through one of the windows - it looked just like a painting.
Intriguing and thought-provoking stuff as always in a contemporary art museum in a medieval town. Mucho contrast!
This featured blog entry was written by Jenniferklm from the blog De Nuevo a España.
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