AgustÍn MartÍnez Soler square
The origins of Peñaranda
When the re-populating movements began in Spain, during the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, many thought that staying in this place was a good idea: this is the exact place where the livestock path that joined Medina del Campo with Plasencia crossed the roads that went from Ávila to Salamanca, and from Arévalo to Alba de Tormes.
After the king gave the town a weekly market concession - which is still running - its oldest square, the one you are standing in, became a trading place for those buying and those selling, those bringing and those carrying away, those who wanted something and those who had something to trade. Anything could be found there, and the merchants and mule drivers coming from Zamora and Salamanca to Ávila and Madrid did their best to get to it; meanwhile thousands of Merina sheep that went up and down the Cañada Real (Royal Livestock Path) to and from Extremadura.
On one of the sides of this square is the San Miguel church, with its classical façade. In 1971, a violent fire destroyed the inside of this temple, taking with it the beautiful altarpiece in the main altar, which was a Baroque masterpiece and one of the most noteworthy in the province.