Cuenca is perched on a rock between two gorges, those of the Júcar and the Huécar. Its medieval houses lean out over the cliff and, since 1966, three of them have held one of the most remarkable abstract art museums in Europe. Twelve stops between the patron saint's bridge, the dyers' street, the skyscrapers of San Martín, the colourful climb of Alfonso VIII, the Mangana tower, the town hall you walk beneath, the cathedral of the English queen, the Hanging Houses, the museum of Zóbel, Torner and Rueda, the iron bridge over the Huécar, the convent turned parador and the castle where the Inquisition held court. Approximate audio duration: 18 minutes.
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Cuenca: casas colgadas sobre el vacío y un museo de arte abstracto adentro
Cuenca está encaramada en una roca entre dos gargantas, la del Júcar y la del Huécar. Sus casas medievales se asoman al precipicio y, desde 1966, tres de ellas guardan uno de los museos de arte abstracto más singulares de Europa. Doce paradas entre el puente de la patrona, la calle de los tintoreros, los rascacielos de San Martín, la cuesta de colores de Alfonso VIII, la torre de la Mangana, el ayuntamiento que se cruza por debajo, la catedral de la reina inglesa, las Casas Colgadas, el museo de Zóbel, Torner y Rueda, el puente de hierro sobre el Huécar, el convento convertido en parador y el castillo donde juzgaba la Inquisición. Duración aproximada de audio: 18 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~18 min of audio · 2.02 km on foot (~30 min walking) · about 1 h in total
You are standing by the San Antón bridge, over the River Júcar. Beside you is the church of the Virgen de la Luz, the patron saint of Cuenca. Look up: high above, on the rock, the old town begins.
Cuenca was not built in a valley. It was built on a limestone ridge that two rivers carved away over millions of years. On this side, the Júcar. On the other side, the Huécar.
Between them was left a kind of stone prow. The houses crowded together on top because there was no more room. And when the room ran out, they began to grow out over the void.
The Muslims called the city Kunka and fortified …
2
The Street of the Dyers
You are on the Calle de los Tintes, the Street of the Dyes, right by the Júcar. The name is not decorative. Here, beside the water, worked the dyers who gave colour to the wool.
In the Middle Ages and up to the sixteenth century, Cuenca was one of the great textile cities of Castile. The flocks of the surrounding mountains gave wool in abundance. The city turned it into cloth that was sold far away.
Dyeing needed a great deal of running water. That is why the workshops clung to the rivers. Tanners and fulling mills, which pounded the cloth to thicken it, also looked for the riverbank.
Look …
3
Medieval Skyscrapers
Look up, towards the edge of the rock. Those towering houses, with row upon row of windows, belong to the San Martín district. In Cuenca they call them the skyscrapers.
The trick lies in what you cannot see from here. On the other side, from the street, these same houses look modest: three or four storeys. But on this side they drop down the cliff and add many more floors.
There was no brilliant architect behind it. There was a lack of space. The city could not spread outwards, hemmed in by walls and precipices. So it grew downwards, leaning on the rock.
Some of these houses are entered fro…
4
The Colourful Climb and the English Queen
You are on the Calle Alfonso VIII, the main climb into the old town. Look at the façades: yellow, red, blue, ochre. It is one of the most photographed views in Cuenca.
The street is named after the king who conquered the city in 1177. Alfonso VIII was barely in his twenties at the time. Cuenca became a key stronghold on the frontier with Al-Andalus.
To populate it, the king granted it a fuero, its own code of laws, towards the end of the twelfth century. The Fuero de Cuenca was so thorough that it served as a model for many other towns in Castile and Aragon.
Beside the king was his wife, El…
5
The Tower Over the Lost Fortress
You are in the Plaza de la Mangana. In front of you rises a square tower with a clock. It is one of Cuenca's symbols, and one of its great puzzles.
This is where the Muslim citadel stood, the fortress that dominated the city of Kunka. From here you could control the gorge of the Júcar, right below you.
After the Christian conquest, the area became the Jewish quarter. For generations, Jews, Christians and Muslims shared this rock. With the persecutions of the late Middle Ages and the expulsion of 1492, the Jewish quarter vanished.
The tower you see is not medieval in its present form. It has…
6
A Town Hall You Walk Beneath
You have just walked beneath the town hall. Turn round and look at it: a Baroque building resting on three arches. Pedestrians and even cars pass through them.
It was built in the eighteenth century, in the time of Charles III. There was no room for a town hall with its own square. So they raised it like a bridge, closing off the southern end of the Plaza Mayor.
It is a perfect example of how Cuenca works. Every building had to negotiate with the rock, with the slope and with its neighbours. Nothing is straight, nothing is flat.
Now look at the square. It is long, irregular and sloping. The…
7
The Cathedral of the English Queen
You are standing before the cathedral of Santa María y San Julián. Look at the façade: it seems unfinished, and it is. Something is missing at the top.
The cathedral was begun at the end of the twelfth century, a few years after the conquest of 1177. It is one of the earliest Gothic cathedrals in Castile. And its style has a foreign accent: Anglo-Norman.
The most widely accepted explanation is Eleanor of England. The queen came from a court where the Gothic of northern France and Normandy was in full flower. The builders who worked here knew those models.
Now, the façade. In 1902 the Girald…
8
Three Houses on the Edge
You are beside the Hanging Houses. Look at the wooden balconies jutting out from the rock. Beneath them there is nothing: only air and, far below, the River Huécar.
There were many houses like this on the edge of Cuenca. Today three survive: the House of the Mermaid and the two known as the King's Houses. According to the records, they date back to the fifteenth century.
But be wary of the idea that what you see has stood untouched for six hundred years. The houses suffered centuries of decay and alteration. Much of what you admire today is the result of twentieth-century restorations, in th…
9
Zóbel's Museum on the Edge of the Abyss
You are in the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art, inside the Hanging Houses. Look at the rooms: white walls, wooden beams, windows open onto the void. And on the walls, painting that in the 1960s many people did not even consider art.
The idea came from Fernando Zóbel, a painter born in Manila in 1924 to a family of Spanish origin. Zóbel had built up a collection of abstract works by Spanish artists of his generation. He was looking for a place to show it.
He found one thanks to two friends: Gustavo Torner, born in Cuenca, and Gerardo Rueda. The same two from the cathedral windows. The town han…
10
The Iron Bridge Over the Void
You are on the San Pablo bridge. Look down between the planks: the River Huécar flows some sixty metres below. If you suffer from vertigo, better look straight ahead.
This bridge exists because of a convent. In the sixteenth century, the canon Juan del Pozo founded a Dominican convent, San Pablo, on the far side of the gorge. To reach it, you had to cross the ravine.
The first bridge was stone, with great arches. It was built over the course of the sixteenth century and was a huge undertaking for its time. It lasted more than three hundred years, but time and water gradually weakened it.
At…
11
The Convent Facing the City
You are in front of the former convent of San Pablo, on the far side of the gorge. Look at its church and stone walls, resting on the rock. Today it is the Parador de Cuenca.
The Dominicans lived here for centuries, cut off from the city by the abyss. Every trip into Cuenca meant crossing the bridge. The convent was both retreat and balcony.
With the confiscations of church property in the nineteenth century, the possessions of many religious orders passed to the State. The convent lost its friars and was put to other uses. At the end of the twentieth century it was restored as a state-run p…
12
The Castle of the Inquisition
You have reached the highest point of Cuenca. In front of you are the Bezudo arch and the remains of the walls of the old castle. This is the northern gate of the old town, where the rock joins the plateau.
This was the only side from which Cuenca could be attacked without scaling a precipice. That is why the defences were concentrated here, from Muslim times onwards.
But the castle had a darker use. Cuenca's Inquisition tribunal, set up at the end of the fifteenth century, moved into this building in the sixteenth. Here those accused of heresy, secret Judaism, witchcraft or blasphemy were l…
How long does the "Cuenca: Houses Hanging Over the Void, with Abstract Art Inside" audio tour take?
It has about 18 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 2.02 km walking route (~30 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The River That Split the Rock" (coordinates 40.0731, -2.1342). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Cuenca and pick "Cuenca: Houses Hanging Over the Void, with Abstract Art Inside". No account required to start.
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