At the gates of the Monfragüe National Park and on the banks of the Tagus, we visited one of the fashionable towns in Cáceres. A town covered in murals on facades and doors that make up one of the most suggestive artistic routes in Spain.
Because graffiti and urban art have not been the exclusive heritage of large capitals for a long time. You just need to take a walk through the streets of Romangordo to see that our towns also breathe a lot of art.
Romangordo paints our history
“Look, under that bridge I learned to swim. And on that path that leads to the fountain I took my first pedal strokes. In that forest we played hide and seek. And here we sat in the cool to listen to the stories of the elders.” Surely you must have explained something similar to that to one of your children when you took them to your town, where you were born or where you spent your days. Summer Vacation.
But, even if he listens to you more or less attentively, he will not be able to capture your memory as you would like, nor will he be cradled in nostalgia as you do when you smell it once again. the aroma of your childhood. “Very good, very random…Can you leave me your cell phone because I have a game of Garten of Banban in standby?”
To facilitate the setting process for the younger ones, bring a tear to the eyes of the older ones and enthuse the instagrammers of the rural posture, Romangordo has filled the facades, walls and doors of its streets and homes with murals. An outdoor artistic exhibition that combines history, ethnography, customs and many memories.
Because that’s what it’s about, at the end of the day, painting our history, our memory. It is true that it is not the first town (nor will it be the last) that opts for an aesthetic change of face to bait tourists. They do it in Morocco and Honduras, in Gambia and Australia. Why not in Cáceres?
Trampotojos in Campo Arañuelo
It was in 2016 when the Romangordo City Council spruced up an area of the town with a mural that represented an everyday scene starring a donkey. And although the most famous donkey in our rural imagination grew up a little further south, this animal always awakens an irresistible empathy in us, wherever it is. He “romangordeño donkey corner” thus becomes symbol of the history of the town. And the “light bulb” lit up, of course: what if…?
Since then, the trompe l’oeil began to fill the walls of the town’s streets, as well as the doors of the homes, configuring a route which is already the town’s main magnet for rural tourists.
A map designed by the City Council allows us to follow the different proposals of the artists, although taking into account that it is a town of just under 250 people, there is no loss: art is everywhere you look.
And the dominant aesthetic of this urban exhibition is the so-called trompe l’oeil: this visual illusion that makes us believe that we are seeing a real scene in three dimensions, when it is “just” a mural; that makes us believe that we have traveled back in time, when we are still present in the era of YouTube and company.
Trades and customs of Romangordo
And that is the most notable aspect of the Romangordeña artistic proposal: offering the visitor a visual compendium of the traditional trades and customs of a small town in Cáceres. Just six decades ago, the town was not “so small” since it had three times the population than today: almost 800 inhabitants.
At the gates of the town we see water carriers, blacksmiths, millers, shepherds, tailors, barbers, cheese makers, gardeners, farmers and even telephone operators. There are also scenes of the pharmacy, the school or the pasture that surrounds the town. And the children jumping rope or playing on the “courts” in the squarebefore the slides arrived at the playground.
Other murals include messages that tell us about the emigrants who left the town “marching along the Camino del Palomar” or the current tourists who are seduced to stay in the town because “Romangordo is already in our imagination.”
Romangordo beyond its murals
Romangordeño urban art must be more than an effective tourist hook and a nostalgic memory of its splendid past of more than ten centuries, when it was founded as Majadat al-Balat in Arab times. In addition to photos with endearing painted donkeys, we must also look for the third dimension of the history and present of the town.
For example, attending the celebration of the XVIII Route of the English which is celebrated the second weekend in May. A party in memory of the historic episode of the Almaraz combat during the Spanish War of Independence, when the pontoon bridge that facilitated the crossing of the Tagus was destroyed. The Route of the English which takes you to Fort Napoleon is a good way to remember this fact.
The St. Catherine’s Church from the 15th century, the (reconstructed) Albalat Bridge on the Tagus or the site of Majadat al-Balat are also part of the cultural heritage of Romangordo and its surroundings. A town that has known how to paint its history, adding illusions to our memories, painting our nostalgia with murals.
