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Magdalena Churcha piece of Portugal in Spain
You can get to pleasant Olivenza from the nearby Badajoz (at 20 kilometres distance), the capital of one of the two provinces of the autonomy of Extremadura. It was founded by the Templars in the XIII century, and its main attractions are the citadel, museum, palace, the royal bakery, the bull fighting arena, and the Magdalena church. Today it has about 12.000 inhabitants who speak spanish, although some people still use the portuguese, being of portuguese origin.
Olivenza was a portuguese territory until the War of the Oranges, between Portugal and Spain, in 1801, when Spain obtained this town and countryside around in the following peace negotiations.
I happened to be there a Sunday, and everything was closed except the Magdalena church, which interior was completely decorated with beautiful tiles (or azulejos, which in spanish and portuguese languages means blue tiles, from the word azul, blue), in the typical portuguese manuelino style.
Places such as Olivenza in Spain, Aland Islands in Finland, Islas de la Bahia in Honduras, Sidi Ifni in Morocco, Sikkim in India, Tibet in China, etc., are special for the combination of two cultures.
