Hi Kids,
This is me sitting outside the wall of historic Caceres in western Spain. Caceres is really a city in a city. The historic part is centuries old -- parts of some of the buildings go back to Roman times. It's such a wonderful place, it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In olden times, many cities built walls for protection and Caceres is one of them. Once there was no more room inside the wall, more of the city built up outside. Today Caceres is a large city with modern skyscrapers -- but the heart of the city is very old. That's where Miss Elaine and I stayed. Here's part of what we saw the first day there.
As you can see, the buildings don't look like downtown Edmond! These buildings are 400 to 500 years old.
The streets are very narrow and the town is hilly. Early builders liked to build their towns on top of hills so they could see if an enemy was coming!
There are a number of plazas in the town -- public squares where people gather to visit or to eat. Spanish shops close for several hours every afternoon so everyone can go home and take a siesta (nap). When they get up -- you can tell this is late afternoon by the shadows -- they like to have a small snack. Spanish people eat dinner much later than we do. Many restaurants don't open until 8 or 8:30. I'll tell you more about that in another post.
This is a statue of San Pedro -- we'd call him Saint Peter -- in front of the main cathedral. People think it will bring them good luck if they rub the statue's toes. If they want to find a boyfriend or girlfriend, they kiss the toes. You can see how shiny the toes are from all that rubbing! Miss Elaine and I rubbed the toes, too. But we knew we were already lucky -- we were in beautiful Spain!
Love,
Fuzzy
