The Occasional Odd Crop

Previous // Current // Next

Where: Cuenca, Spain

When: Sept. 27, 2006

Camera: Canon PowerShot A620

Notes: The casas colgadas (hanging houses) cling to a cliff overlooking a gorge. Inside is the Museo de Arte Abstracto Espanól, an abstract-art museum that's phenomenal, especially for a city with fewer than 50,000 people. The hanging houses are what give Cuenca its fame, but we fell in love with the place for other reasons – its streets are just as old, windy and picturesque as those anywhere else we visited, but it wasn't overrun with tourists.

We stayed in a 16th-century former convent a few steps from Plaza Mayor, the main square. People were smaller back then, and I kept hitting my head on overhangs. This, weirdly, was part of the charm. And as I'll show you later, Cuenca's colors are more vibrant than those in bustling, modern Madrid or whitewashed Andalucia. Dani and I had never heard of Cuenca before it showed up on our group's itinerary, but it was the most delightful surprise of the trip.

See more at JPG magazine: I've submitted several Spain photos to JPG magazine. If enough people vote for them, they may be included in the next issue. See them, and vote for them if you like, here.

Multiple posts: I brought back more than 800 photos from our three-week trip. I don't want to be posting photos of Spain for the next six months, so I'm putting up several at a time. Today, I've posted six.

------------

Taking up the pen: I'm taking part in DrawMo, a community blog whose members agree to make one drawing a day this month and post it if they wish. My drawings are here. The group's Flickr page is here.

It's not really ugly anymore, but ... Dani and I have done a lot of work on our new house in San Diego. It looks pretty good now, but when we bought it, the place wasn't all that attractive, which I prove in my other blog, The Ugly House.