Cuenca, Spain: House with yellow painted wall.
From Wikipedia: Cuenca (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkweŋka]) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha in central Spain. It is the capital of the province of the Iberian peninsula was part of the Roman Empire, there were several important settlements in the province, such as Segobriga, Ercavica and Gran Valeria. However, the place where Cuenca is located today was uninhabited at that time. When the Muslim Arabs captured the area in 714, they soon realized the value of this strategic location and they built a fortress (called Kunka) between two gorges dug between the Júcar and Huécar rivers, surrounded by a 1 km-long wall. Cuenca soon became an agricultural and textile manufacturing city, enjoying growing prosperity. Around the 12th century the Christians, living in northern Spain during the Muslim presence, started to slowly recover the Iberian peninsula. Castile took over western and central areas of Spain, while Aragon enlarged along the Mediterranean area. The Muslim Kingdom, Al-Andalus, started to break into small provinces (Reinos de taifas) under Christian pressure, Cuenca being part of the taifa of Toledo. In 1076 it was besieged by Sancho Ramírez of Aragon, but not conquered. In 1080 King Yahya al-Qadir of Toledo lost his taifa, and his vizier signed in Cuenca a treaty with Alfonso VI of León and Castile by which he ceded him some fortresses in exchange for military help. After Alfonso's defeat in the battle of Sagrajas (1086), Cuenca was captured by the king of Seville, Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad. However, when his lands were attacked by the Almoravids, he sent his daughter-in-law Zaida to Alfonso, offering him Cuenca in exchange for military support. The first Christian troops entered the city in 1093. However, the Almoravids captured it in 1108. Their governor in the city declared independence in 1144, followed by the whole of Murcia the following year. In 1147 Muhammad ibn Mardanis was elected King of Cuenca, Murcia and Valencia.
Size: 7184px × 4771px
Location: Cuenca, Spain
Photo credit: © Bert de Ruiter / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: bert, castile–la, cuenca, de, heritage, historical, history, horizontal, house, landscape, lantern, mancha, painted, ruiter, site, spain, spanish, streetlight, travel, unesco, wall, windows, world, yellow
