A few years ago, the Spanish musical group, Gabinete Caligari, immortalized her, glossing her virtues in a catchy song, which contributed, possibly more than any other propaganda device, to removing her from her apparent ostracism and from that generalized feeling of oblivion: Soria.
Before them and after the epic episodes carried out by the Numantines and Romans, powerful religious-military orders, such as the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem or the Order of the Temple, left, both inside and outside the walls of their now ruined walls, not only a multitude of legends, but also the trace, more or less altered, of their presence, confirmed in the sacred places - today, historical, artistic and cultural monuments that make up a good part of our superb Heritage - that they inhabited.
Famous kings, such as Alfonso VIII of Castile, were protected and educated there and there they celebrated, in lavish churches built by Aquitaine stonemasons, such as that of Santo Domingo, their betrothal with princesses of ancient European ancestry, as is the case of the princess Eleanor of Plantagenet, daughter of the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine - a sovereign of character and sensitivity, under whose protection troubadour poetry flourished to unimaginable levels - and of Henry II of Plantagenet, who, curiously, died in the same castle where, a century later , the Knights Templar were imprisoned and tortured, by order of the King of France, Philip the Fair: Chinon.
Alfonso VIII was also one of the three Christian kings, who, around the year 1212, inflicted a severe defeat on the powerful Almoravid hosts in the battle known as the Navas de Tolosa, an event that considerably reduced the power of the Muslim Caliphate. on the Peninsula, giving a sovereign push to a Reconquista, which would culminate in 1492, the year of the discovery of America, when the Catholic Monarchs conquered Granada.
Its wealth, both monumental and traditional, is therefore assured, especially taking into account that, in addition, great geniuses of Literature and Poetry, such as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer - who spent the night in she on her way to the Aragonese monastery of Veruela, collecting a multitude of traditions, of which, at least, two would be sovereignly collected in her immortal book of legends: ‘The Mound of the Souls' and ‘The Moon’s ray’ - Antonio Machado -who was a teacher at the same school that today bears his name and who immortalized in his work numerous places that today enrich the cultural aspect of visits, such as the Lovers Walk, which occupies the left side of the Duero bank, on the way to the hermitage of San Saturio, the Patron Saint - or Gerardo Diego, poet, no less melancholic than the previous ones, in one of whose most famous poems, he left that unforgettable stanza that says: 'River Duero, River Duero, today no one to sing to you low'.
Located with absolute precision in that geographical center of the Iberian Peninsula, Soria is a relatively small city, but with a very special charm, which, due to the quantity and quality of its monumentality, could have also been enjoyed, like Palencia, like Ávila, like Salamanca or like Zamora, with the privilege of having been considered, rightly so, as a World Cultural Heritage City.
A walk is enough to discover it, so that the visitor has the sensation, in fact, that his feet are sliding on a fertile ground supported by a History, whose most representative chapters are determined by a monumentality, whose splendor causes any type of sensation, except indifference.
From the splendor of its Romanesque churches -Santo Domingo, San Juan de Rabanera, Santa María la Mayor, the ruins of San Nicolás or those of San Ginés- its dreamy monasteries -San Juan de Duero and San Polo, the latter, of Templars- the enigmatic hermitage of San Saturio - whose octagonal plan rises above a complex of caves located on the banks of the Duero River, in that crossbow arch described in Machado's poetry - the splendor of its Gothic co-cathedral of San Pedro - which still preserves its beautiful and at the same time disconcerting previous Romanesque cloister - the formidable Renaissance palaces, such as that of the Counts of Gómara - currently converted into the Palace of Justice and on whose frontispiece appears, incomprehensibly, the motto of the Order of the Temple: 'Non nobis, Domine, non nobis sed Nomini tuo da Gloriam', 'Not for us, Lord, but for the Glory of your Name' - the old neoclassical building that houses the facilities of the traditional casino and above all, the Plaza of the Twelve Lineages, heart that summarizes a good part of the social life of a city, which, as Machado said in one of his well-known poems, referring to the Town Hall bell, when it rings one, Soria is so cold and so beautiful under the moon.
But Soria also stands out for its excellent gastronomy, where, in addition to the typical Castilian dishes of lamb and suckling pigs, there is also the greatness of its pickled dishes, the fully deserved fame of its torreznos (pork rind), all of them conveniently watered by the unquestionable quality of wines, which, not by chance, have their quality guaranteed in their denomination of origin: Ribera del Duero.
In short: Soria, a small, but legendary and endearing city, whose visit I am sure will not leave anyone indifferent, much less dissatisfied.
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