Béjar, an important center of cloth manufacture, is attractively situated on a hill above a valley in the western foothills of the Sierra de Gredos. Its agreeable climate makes it a popular summer resort.
This is a 19th century summer house in neo-Moorish style. A stone fountain with a semi-circular bench and a stone staircase leads to a lower garden with a gazebo where the elms and planes are.
The Museo Mateo Hernández, in the church of San Gil, has sculpture and pictures of the Flemish and Spanish schools, enamels, porcelain, ivories and miniatures.
Address: Museo Mateo Hernández, Plaza Martín Mateos, Béjar , Spain
Béjar's most notable building is the fortress-like Palacio Ducal, the 16th century palace of the Dukes of Béjar, in the walled old town, which has a beautiful Renaissance courtyard and a magnificent staircase.
The brick-built church of Santa María, built in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 16th, has a fine sculpture of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias by Luis Salvador Carmona.
Above Béjar is the Santuario del Castañar (alt. 1,050m/3,445ft), from which there are fine views. The chapel, built in the 17th and 18th centuries, with a Baroque interior, is situated on the spot where the Virgin is said to have appeared to some monks in 1447. Since then the Virgen del Castañar, of whom there is a much venerated 15th century image in the chapel, has been the patroness of Béjar.
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