I’m having another night at the same hotel, so today I set off to visit nearby Cáceres, renowned for being a heritage site and Game of Thrones location: it posed as Kings Landing in season 7.
Here’s a small flavour of the old town centre – complete with cloudless blue sky and bright sunlight.
I was hoping to buy some of the reputedly delectable confectionary sold by the nuns in various convents in the old town but their “shops” were closed for lunch.
Many nuns in the convents earn their living selling sweet treats. Their recipes come from the times of the Romans and Moors.
To buy the sweets, you enter a very small room in the convent with a turntable built into the wall. You never see the nun with whom you do the transaction, since the nuns are cloistered and avoid direct contact with the public.
The whole procedure reminded me of the almost inverse procedure by which unwanted babies used to be given up for adoption at the ancient Santo Spirito hospital staffed by nuns in medieval Rome.
In this case, after ringing a bell to alert the nuns, mothers placed the babies in a revolving barrel known as a foundling wheel built into the side of the hospital. Half a coin would also be put into the drum. The mother would keep the other half of the coin, so that the two halves could be matched if the pair were ever reunited. More details are in a blog post on my Hidden Lazio site.
After a reasonable amount of wandering round the old centre, I sat in the sun with a beer and a mound of delicious olives to watch the world go by for an hour or so before coming back to the hotel.
I’ve been chatting to a few people since I arrived at the hotel. The vast majority of guests are Brits bound for Andalusia and Portugal – going back home or just escaping the cold. Many have dogs. Everyone seems to love the lifestyle and I’ve picked up a few travel tips from these old hands.
