S O R I A

The Poet´s Town

The Church of San Juan de Rabanera: Beginning with this National Monument as an overture, Romanesque Soria will not disappoint you. Take the time to gaze upon the apse and the beautiful facade of this church. The statues of the Provintial Council will watch over your exploration. Immortalized in bronze, they represent illustrious citizens of Soria.

The Park of the Alameda de Cervantes: If you enquire about the green spot in the centre of your map, you will be told that it is the Dehesa (the Pasture). This green area supplies the city with fresh air and contains more than eighty autochthonous and exotic trees and shrubs. The hermitage of the Soledad houses a sixteenth-century carving of Christ known as the Cristo del Humilladero, a statue attributed to Juan de Juni. Beside the hermitage stands a rose flower chestnut which may be the site where the Tree of Music, once stood. However Soria will extent the memory of the tree in keyrings, other objects and nostalgia. Walk also through the paths, gardens, the Rosaleda -the rose garden- and the big esplanade called the Alto.

.Museo numantino: After having visited the Site, which is 7 kilometres far from Soria, you may also visit this museum. It shows in great detail the stages the province has gone through: from the Palaeolithic Era findings, in Ambrona, to modern times, with special emphais on the Celtic-Roman towns of Uxama, Tiermes and Numancia.

The Square of Ramon Benito Aceña: The citizens of Soria want to maintain the former name, so they still call it the square of Herradores. It is a place to have beers with friends. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer lived in this square and suffered the adultery of his wife with an outlaw.

Church of Santo Domingo: After passing by a gate called Puertas de Pro and row of buildings attached to part of the remains of the city wall, we come upon this fabulous church. Gaze at the beautifull Roussillon that reigns on the facade. Gerardo Diego, a well-known poet that lived in this city, called it "the glazed horoscope". So this is your second encounter with a National Monument, paradigm of the style of the whole region. You might stop here: you are just before one of the most exceptional Romanesque monuments on the peninsula. You may hear the sacred music of the Convents of the Clarisas, which is beside the church. By the way: the nuns sell home-made pastries that are almost celestial!

Antonio Machado Secondary School: The classroom where this poet from Seville taught French remains just the way he found it. His bust presides the Barroque facade. From there you can walk down Aduana Vieja Street, full of  coats of arms and rows of balconies, just to the square of San Clemente (also called "the square of the Tubo"), where you can have  draft beer. Look up to the corner window: you have just found another National Monument: the Palace of los Ríos y Salcedo.

Palace de los Ríos y Salcedo: This Renaissance palace, built in the sixteenth century, is today's Provincial Historic Archive. The door of the building is protected by beautiful coats of arms.

 El Collao: It is the neuralgic centre where the people from Soria go shopping and walk around. This traditional main street shelters under its arcades the Casino, to which Mr. Machado dedicated poems.

Palace of the Condes de Gómara: It is today's Provincial Court and masterpiece of civil architecture in Soria. This National Monument,  a Renaissance masterpiece, stands out in the old part of the city.

Plaza Mayor: if you want to get there, cross Zapatería Street -with old houses and palaces-then go through the "Arch of the cuerno", where bulls used to enter when the square was used as a bullring. The town hall, just in front of you, is a seveteenth-century building called "de los Doce Linajes". Beside this building we can see the former town hall, which today is a Cultural Centre, and which may tell you it is 1 o'clock (if that ever happens remember Mr. Machado: it is the clock of the Audience). In the corner you will see the Tower of Doña Urraca, and behind it, there is the church of La Mayor, where Mr. Machado married Leonor.

The church of El Carmen: it is a Renaissance church and former palace given to Santa Teresa de Jesús. It represents its austerity in the square of Fuente Cabrejas.

Zapatería and Real Streets: they are the main arteries of  medieval Soria and nowadays they fight to maintain the fleeting memories of the former magnificence that the Gothic-Elizabethan houses bore witness to. On our way down, we will come upon the ruins of a Romanesque church -another National Monument. It is the church of San Nicolás, the temple that gave its portico to the West entrance of San Juan de Rabanera, and where we can find the remains of Thomas Becket's martyrdom painting.

The Cathedral of San Pedro: Built over a church of the XII century, this National Monument, with a Plateresque facade, conserves the cloister of the primitive temple, where, despite the mutilations, we can see the purest Romanesque.

The Hermitage of San Saturio: This hermitage, dedicated to the patron saint of Soria,  reflects over the Duero one of the most wonderful images of this capital with poets. Erected over a rock, in the eighteenth century, this temple, of octagonal design, tells the living story of a dark hermit that the legend turns into a noble Visigoth's son who decided to renounce the world to live in a cave beside the river.

If possible, read the poem that Gerardo Diego dedicated to the arches. Or maybe you'd rather turn your attention to Bécquer's note: the hill in front of you is called the Hill of the Animas, a name that inevitably leads us to the famous and mysterious legend.