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Published: November 30th 2007
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Towers and Defensive Walls
Protecting the living quarters of the lord of the castle I left my hotel at a comfortable 8:20 AM, almost in perfect synchrony with the forecasted 8:17 AM sunrise for Madrid. Though for many Spaniards minus one degree Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit) was bitterly cold, I found the temperature perfect for walking at my usual fast pace, without working a sweat.
My intermediate objective was Plaza Castilla, which I reached via Metro. From Plaza Castilla’s interchange I needed to catch bus line 724 that would take me to my ultimate destination, the town of Manzanares El Real located about 50 km (30 miles) from downtown Madrid, but still within Madrid’s district. Why going there? While researching Spain's Royal Palace's history, I came across a reference to a surviving castle from the XV Century in this town.
Don Diego de Mendoza is believed to have started the construction of the castle in 1475. Around this period, many illustrious Mendoza family members had been loyal subjects of the Spanish Crown. For their service, the crown had granted them major land rights. This was the time of the re-conquest, when Spain was fighting the Moorish invasion that had dominated the Iberian Peninsula for several centuries.
Even before the bus arrived in
The Mendozas' Castle
Best preserved medieval castle within the Madrid District Manzanares, the magnificent sight of the castle from the road allowed me to anticipate the experience. By the time that the bus dropped me (and many other people) between the castle and the center of town, it was just a few minutes past 10:00 AM, the time that according to my research was the opening time for visits.
The information that I had collected proved to be inaccurate though, because when I got to the ticket counter, the lady working there told me that visits would start at 11:00 AM. I did not mind this delay because I was allowed to come into the castle's grounds where I could start capturing images from various vantage points. The lady at the counter also informed me that I was going to share my visit with a group of children. I did not quite know at this point what to expect, but given several similar experiences in the U.S. I was more than a bit worried. In any case, I did not have any choice because of my limited available time.
Promptly at 11:00 AM, as I was approaching the main gate of the castle, I saw an adult surrounded by
20 to 30 small children approaching the gate, as they were pausing to allow an even bigger group to gather, I proceeded to enter the building as one of the employees opened the doors for the day… At least I was going to have the place to myself for a few minutes… Or so I thought.
The organization that manages the castle has done an outstanding job at producing museum-type displays that actually explain its history and describe the culture of the time. They also produced a multi-media presentation that portrays a dramatized monolog from a character in period clothing (a person composited from available records) that explains one of the periods of the castle before it was finally abandoned by 1700 AD. Unfortunately for many potential international visitors, you need to brush on your Spanish Castilian in order to take advantage of these available resources because all of them are only in this language.
By the time I got to the major halls of the castle, the group of children and their teachers caught up with me (I am infamous for the long time that I spend going through displays at museums). I was surprised to learn
Dining Room
I wonder how it did really look with torches and candles as the sole illumination.... that they were only 4-5 year-old, but I was amazed by how well behaved they were. The only initial drawback of having them around was that because of their short legs, they were having major trouble climbing the tall and narrow stone stairs that connected the various areas of the castle.
These stairs for the most part lacked any of the safety devices that you find in more modern buildings. In the United States, this castle would be a real treasure for civil lawyers and their clients, who would already have sued the operation to oblivion… The if-anything-bad-ever-happens-to-me-then-somebody-else- must-be-responsible-and-should-pay-for-it attitude does not exist in Spain and apparently, people are not going in mass to early graves because of it… Probably the reverse is true: individuals become hardier, wiser and capable to overcome obstacles as they learn from a very early age about taking care of themselves and being personally responsible for their actions and choices… What an old concept!
The other impressive part was the control that these teachers had over the children… They reminded me about my own early teachers in Central America who never hesitated to slap my hands with a big wooden ruler when a
much younger version of me pushed the envelope a bit too far (and I am not talking about academics here). Unlike what the typical idiot at the A. C. L. U. would have you believe, just a couple of these experiences actually helped me become a better human being (and I promise you that I have never had any psychological -or physical- scarring from it).
I couldn’t help but imagine how the typical public U. S. school students would fare on a field trip to this particular site (even older ones). For the benefit of any blog readers outside of the U. S. A., I need to share that our students can do anything they want in class. Powerful but thoroughly misguided “civil liberties” advocates have rendered teachers totally powerless to control their students and they can only use what I call verbal “suggestions” about what the students should or should not do or how they should behave, so long as such suggestions do not “offend” any student or his or her sensibilities in any way.
This condition plus the belief of many parents that they should be “best friends” of their children and never discipline them at
home (or anywhere else for that matter) is producing a generation of brats that are poorly adapted to the realities of our 21st. Century world.
After going through this line of thought, I realized how lucky I was to visit this great castle with only a large group of well-behaved kids and their teachers sharing my experience. It was better than having the whole place to myself since I was enjoying seeing (but not much hearing!) the sense of wonder expressed in the young students’ wide-open eyes as they toured the site.
Upon leaving the Mendoza’s castle, I visited Manzanares El Real’s City Hall. I was looking for a map of the city to be able to locate other sites that I knew existed here; including the ruins of an even older castle and several XV Century churches. Once I got a map, it was easy for me to find what I was looking for. The old castle’s ruins were interesting but only amounted to the foundation, segments of the lower part of the surrounding fortified wall and a lot of garbage left there by earlier visitors.
I also hiked about one kilometer up the hill to
Sacred Rock Chapel
The pools of rain water form on natural rounded cavities on the massive rock slabs see the Sacred Rock chapel that was built right a the foot of the Pedriza mountains, on top of a solid slab of rock. Since the small church was closed, I did not get to see the inside of the structure, but the sight was still worth the walk.
After seeing the chapel, I returned to downtown Manzanares El Real and caught the 2:25 PM 724 bus headed for Madrid, where I needed to attend a business meeting later that afternoon and into the evening.
On a closing note, this short tour was a great value for me now that our US dollar doesn’t buy much anywhere: 2.00 Euros for round trip Metro tickets, 3.10 Euros each way in bus fares, and 2.00 Euros entry ticket at the castle… Total: 10.20 Euros for a really great experience!
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