Teruel – A love for Mudejar
Madrid, located in the geographic centre of Spain, is like a Moloch absorbing everything that lies in the centre. In central Spain you will therefore find provincial capitals that are spots from which you get little to hear. If you visit Teruel, you will see there a very popular bumper sticker: Teruel Existe! – Teruel actually exists!
In winter it is one of Spain’s coldest places, which is the main reason for Teruel to appear from time to time in the news. But this nice provincial capital and its surrounding area have some interesting things to show!
The landscape around is quite rude and almost uninhabited (the Teruel province is one of the European regions with less inhabitants per square km). It is easy to imagine that this was the place where one of the hardest battles of the Spanish civil war (1936-39) was fought.
Nevertheless, Teruel-capital was an important city in the Middle Ages, when it was located on the border between Christian and Muslim kingdoms fighting over the Iberian Peninsula. From this age dates the Spanish version of Romeo and Juliet, the Amantes de Teruel – a true story of an impossible love between two youngsters in the 13th century, which later became a legend. The two at least share a common tomb, a mausoleum.
Teruel is considered to be the centre of the Mudéjar-art, typical for the region of Aragón, where it is situated. Its name refers to the Mudéjares, the Muslim population that remained in the region when it was conquered by the Christians. They worked in the construction of Christian buildings, decorating them with characteristic and magnificent geometric tile patterns.
Teruel´s cathedral is one of the best examples for this architecture. In many other places, the Mudéjar art reappears when modern restoration removes the thick layer of plaster with which the Mudéjar tiles were covered centuries later. Zaragoza´s La Seo cathedral showed up to be a real surprise!
If after visiting Teruel´s old town and its cathedral, you would like a coffee or an appetizer, you can have a seat in one of the many cafés situated in the small Plaza del Torico and you may feel beamed back to the 70´s. The small Plaza takes its name from the figure of a little bull on a column. It is not a symbol for Teruel´s keenness for bullfights but shows one of the iconic animal figures of the Iberians, who populated Spain before the Romans came in.
In modern times, lots of dinosaur remains, especially their fossilized footsteps, have been found in the Teruel province. It seems they liked strolling through this land. If you travel with kids, a visit to Territorio Dinópolis on the outskirts of Teruel will be a joy for them!