What to see:
- Churches
- Convents
- Chapels
Cemetery
DURATION: 4 HOURS
DIFFICULTY: LOW
ACCESS: ON FOOT AND BY VEHICLE (to the cemetery)
In this tour, you will be able to approach the religious and pious life through the numerous churches and convents that flourished at the same time as Alcázar de San Juan since the 13th century, as well as others.
The Church of Santa Maria La Mayor (Plaza de Santa Maria, 7) is the oldest temple in the town, its origins date back to the Romanesque style of the s.. XIII and has received later contributions in different periods and styles such as Renaissance and Baroque which is the style under which the magnificent chapel of the Virgen del Rosario, patron saint and perpetual mayoress of Alcazar de San Juan is made. It is in this church where we find the baptismal font in which, according to a document that attests to it, Miguel de Cervantes was baptized in 1558.
We will continue through the old Convent of San José, founded back in the s. XVII to house a community of Poor Clare nuns and today is home to the Formma Museum, “Museo de Alfarería de La Mancha” (c/ San Antonio, s/n). It exhibits a wide sample of pieces from the main production centers of La Mancha that were molded for centuries in clay to achieve the optimum shape to meet every need.
From there we will continue to the Church of Santa Quiteria located in the square of the same name and whose construction began in the last quarter of the century. XV. The historical evolution of the building has led it to undergo various reconstructions and renovations that have added to its original Renaissance structure elements from different periods, such as the Renaissance and the Renaissance. XVI, XVIII and XX.
If we walk along Trinidad Street we will find the temple that gives its name to this street, the Church of the Convent of the Trinity (XVII century). With the foundation of the convent in 1647, a baroque church was built in which the coat of arms of the Trinitarian order stands out with the characteristic cross painted in blue and red framed by lobed shaped bezels. Its interior houses the altarpiece of the current high altar of baroque traces, which houses a chapel-ambulatory dedicated to Jesus of Nazareth, an image with great veneration in Alcazar de San Juan.
The Church of the Convent of San Francisco (Plaza del Altozano de la Inmaculada, 12) was ordered to be founded next to the convent in the 16th century under the auspices of D. Diego de Toledo, son of the Duke of Alba. Its interior integrates Renaissance art with some late Gothic elements and on the outside its façade is reconstructed according to Renaissance precepts.
Walking down Virgen Street from San Francisco we find the Convent of Santa Clara, a building that was built in the sixteenth century next to the Ermita de la Concepción (now disappeared) and housed the Poor Clare nuns until 1868. Of great decorative sobriety, it is of Renaissance style. Of the primitive construction, only the structure of the interior patio and the façade built in pink sandstone remain as vestiges of the 16th century.
Along our way we will encounter the unique neighborhood chapels and crosses. Small samples of the devotion and religiosity of different times, all of them hide behind them mysteries and legends such as those of the streets Doctor Alberca Lorente, Rondilla de la Cruz Verde or at the intersection of Emilio Castelar and Miguel De Unamuno streets.
We are used to touring the cities “of the living”, the Cemetery of Alcazar de San Juan offers an important and beautiful collection of funerary monuments, both tombs and sculptures. The wrought iron tombs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the iron architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the XIX), and the different styles such as: modernism, neogothicism and neoclassicism (first half of the XIX century). XX), eclecticism and rationalism, flood the entire holy field of Alcazar. The tombs are completed by different sculptural elements with both Christian and secular symbolism.
