Yesterday my friend had to return to Barcelona after a month helping me at the farm. I drove him to Madrid to catch the high-speed train back home and then I started my return drive to Portugal. Madrid is about 3.5 hours away from the farm and there are not very good travel connections from the city, you either go to Madrid to catch a flight, high-speed train, or bus or go to Lisbon to catch a flight.
After about 1 hour of driving, the car showed an issue in the board and I had to get off the highway, stop at the first car workshop I found, and figure out I had to spend the night to get the car fixed as two injectors were giving problems.
I ended up spending the night at a very small town only 10 km away from Talavera de la Reina, so today I decided to take a local bus and visit the city while waiting for the car to be fixed.
Talavera is well known for its pottery craft, which was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2019, I decided to stop by the tourist office to request a map of the city and the interesting places to visit.
Started my walk by the gardens next to the Tajo river
And the park "Los Jardines del Prado" next to the tourist office, with all its entrances decorated with ceramic tiles.
After a short walk, I stopped at the ceramic museum to read about the ancient pottery industry in the city which was free of charge.
It was amazing to see the pottery from different historical epochs with their styles.
After the visit to the museum, I walked through the old town streets where you find many houses decorated with tyles as this "Churreria" a hot chocolate and coffee shop selling Churros, the famous pastry from Spain.
Some of the buildings had also impressively decorated wood doors, as this one which is home to the local city police.
There was ceramic all over, this tile old town map showing all the monuments was on the entrance of a parking lot.
You could also see several houses with a decorative shield of the family or organization owning the place
I ended up at the Town Hall plaza with the main church and a little garden with all benches decorated with tiles.
Here is one of the entrances of the wall surrounding the old town with a nice bar on the patio, I would have loved to sit there and drink a cold beer but it was closed.
Here's the same place with the terrace from a different angle
And some pictures of smaller churches and a Victoria Theatre in the old city
Here is another entrance to the ancient wall surrounding the town
While getting outside the old town I stumbled upon one of the traditional pottery shops with lots of plates decorated on the wall and the inside of the shop.
Just to give you an idea of how important pottery and tiles used to be in this city, here is the bottom of a balcony decorated with tile and a representation of the main cathedral.
And even the city water swage steel covers were decorated with the city shield.
It was a very hot day and I decided to take the bus back to the hotel after a 3-hour walking tour. I loved the city and will probably stop by again in the future as it is in the way to the Portugal farm