Hanging Out at the Hanging Houses

Lets go ahead and talk about those hanging houses before they fall into the river. Just kidding. Even though they hang precariously over the edge of the gorge, they don’t look like they’re going anywhere anytime soon. That’s what 14th Century construction gets you: gorgeous houses, built into a cliff that remain intact over 600 years later. How did they do it?

The hanging houses, or “Casas Colgadas”, are located in Cuenca, along the Huécar River which actually carved out much of the area surrounding the houses. I’m not sure if it reached all the way up to the houses themselves but you’ll see a picture of the river later on in this post. And the fact that it ever carved out anything is pretty impressive.

Cuenca is a small city located in the Castilla-La Mancha region. It was occupied by the Moors from 714 until 1177 during which time it established itself as a leading producer in the textile and agriculture industries. After the Moors were conquered, the area experienced great prosperity as a result of these industries; however, it now depends more on cultural tourism. It became a World Heritage site in 1996 and, well, those houses are pretty dang cool.

I know, I know there are tons of pictures and they all look kind of the same. But that’s the problem when you go somewhere really impressive looking (and on multiple days at multiple times, that’s why the lighting is different.) Everytime you turn around, it’s photo-worthy and you’re not quite sure if you’ve already captured it. Or if you’ve adequately captured it. I’m still not sure these pictures do it justice. It’s just so big and grand that it makes you feel small (but in a good way) and I’m not sure you can really tell from the pictures. But I can’t take the houses with me so pictures will have to suffice.

Remember I said that a river did this and that when you see it, you probably won’t believe it? Well let’s see if I was right…

That big thing is very obviously the road. The river is behind it.

Though she be but little, she is fierce, am I right?

Anyway, in the background you can see some nature-ish trails so we went for a brief walk along those and made it all the way out to castle. This must be the only place where a castle is an afterthought. I don’t even remember what the castle looked like except that it had teeny, tiny, little windows with bars on them. It was the view that stole the show.

So there are houses hanging on a cliff. There’s a castle. There’s an old monastery, that is now a fancy hotel. (That would be the building in the middle of the picture above). There’s also a little town, full of colorful houses, a bearth full church, and some pretty steep walks.

For a small town, it had some big time wonder. By day and by night.