During my short business trip to Madrid, I had another chance to spend weekend to explored nearby World Heritage sites. I had dilemma between Zaragoza and Cuenca, but decided to visit Cuenca as Aranjuez was possible to visit in the same trip. After spent half day in Aranjuez, I arrived my hotel Parador de Cuenca around 4 PM. My first impression on Cuenca was its unique location, the whole historic town was located on promontory surround by two side of gorges and high hill on the north with lowland entrance from the south with just small creek to separate the old town and the new one.

From my hotel which located on the other side of the gorge, the view of the old city built on the top of the gorge was quite stunning. I immediately went out to explore the old city by crossing the picturesque San Pablo bridge. At the end of the bridge was the famous Hanging Houses of Cuenca, the tourist icon of this town. While the houses, which were actually just multi-stories balcony attached the buildings, and surroundings were lovely and very photogenic, I felt a bit underwhelmed for something that should be a main attraction of this World Heritage Site. Then I walked to see the Plaza Mayor, the square was dominated by the unfinished façade of Cuenca Cathedral and the beautiful city hall office which built above the main street and became some kind of city gate. The row of medieval buildings along the main street were fine and in good condition of preservation, but nothing special. The sole highlight of Cuenca in my opinion was its dense urban landscape that built on thin terrace surrounded by deep gorge.

All in all, Cuenca is a fine medieval town of Spain, unfortunately it reminded me many medieval cities in Central Italy, so it could not provide me any obvious universal outstanding value in terms of architecture or urban landscape. But for Iberian region, it may indeed a bit unique for its very well-preserved medieval town built in the hard to believe terrain. Before I visited Cuenca, I wondered will Cuenca be repetitive with other World Heritage medieval cities around Madrid e.g. Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca and Avila or not? But after seeing them all, I would say Spain did a great job as each site were really unique worthwhile to visit all of them.