Photos

After having opened the gallery of Coria with "The Maid and The Minotaur", now I present the cathedral with a stitch made of 8 shots (2 rows of 4 shots).

Thank you Didi, for making so much publicity of Autopano Pro, it is an amazing program that renders great panoramas in a breeze. I still have much to learn on the time of shooting, though, as I find too often that the shots I did result in tighter images than I would like. 8-(

The cathedral began being built in the late 15th century, but it wasn't finished until the 18th century, which explain the mix of architectonic styles, starting with late Gothic, then Plateresque (a form of Spanish Renaissance) and ending with Baroque, or its Spanish variant Churrigueresque, named after the family of the architect of the bell tower of this church, Manuel de Lara Churriguera.

The rest of the text is copied from the previous post:

The history of this small small town which nowadays has 12700 inhabitants supposedly began 300,000 years ago, as some traces of human occupation (stone artefacts) from that time were found nearby. Through the centuries VIII to VI BC it was the capital of a kingdom of Vettones, a people of Celtic origin. Romans came in the 1st century BC and ascended it to the status of municipium (the second highest rank of Roman cities, just below colonia) in the 3rd or 4th century AC. The walls that still surround the old part of the town were built during this period and are said to be among the best preserved Roman walls in the world, although they were restored during the Muslim occupation (711 to mid 12th century AC) and in the Middle Age.

It is still the seat of a diocese which could have been founded as early as the 4th century, although the oldest historic evidences are from 589. The seat of the diocese is shared with the capital of the Spanish region of Extremadura, Cáceres, since the 1960's.

It is a quiet and charming little town that doesn't seem to receive much tourists, with much of the old part occupying a hill overlooking the wide valley of the Alagón river, a tributary of the Tagus. I enjoyed strolling in its old streets and the views near the cathedral. Like in all villages and towns where we passed on this short trip, they were celebrating Carnival, so there was a nice party atmosphere in one of the major squares, with many people, namely children, wearing masks. I am a bit disappointed for not having managed to get any photo of them, but it was one of those silly days when I didn't feel inspired enough to struggle against my shyness to photograph people. The fact that we were just passing by and we wanted to get quickly to our destination, the beautiful Jerte valley, didn't help.

Location of the POV (latitude, longitude): 39.9817,-6.5376

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Update 14-Apr-2009: I attached a WS with the 8 shots stitched to compose the main post.