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Spain |
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| Language(s) | Spanish | |
| Currency | Euro (€) | |
| Phone Code | +34 | |
| Population | 45,200,737 | |
| Area | 504,030 sq km | |
| Capital | Madrid | |
| GDP | $1.44 trillion | |
Cuenca (the old city that overlooks a newer city built 300 or so years ago) is small and modest. It has beautiful monuments but it is not all beautiful monuments. Two rivers, the Júcar and Huécar, flow through nearby pine forests of the SerranÃa de Cuenca into gorges that wrap the medieval city above in a protective armor of vertical rock and water. Centuries-old houses cling to the high rim, hanging their shadows on the cliffs from protruding balconies and patios that seem to defy gravity.
Tourists in droves? Yes. With reason? Sin duda, as the Spanish like to say. Toledo was the cradle of indoctrination for Spain long before the Catholics ever thought of Madrid as a capital. It is a bulwarked city, the color of dry straw growing atop a giant, mangled piece of rock. Streets are harrowingly narrow, with sights of mixed styles attributed to the Christians, Islams and Hebrews who shared the city and earned its nickname, “the City of the Three Cultures."
