Extremadura trip: Trujillo and Guadalupe

This is a follow up to my last blog about our trip to Extremadura, 3 hours to the north of Seville. While there exploring some of the monumental cities in the region we stayed in Trujillo in a hotel that was a converted monastery from the 16th century. One of the cool things that Jose and I have done a few times (hoping to do more in the future) is to stay in hotels which have been created in historic buildings. Here in Spain there are lots of options like castles or paradores where you can sleep in a unique place.




Our hotel had a pool but unfortunately we could only go for an hour a day due to COVID restrictions. We took full advantage in the afternoons after spending our mornings sightseeing. The hotel also offered a good breakfast which is always a plus.



Trujillo was the home of Francisco Pizzaro, the explorer, so of course the main square is crowned by a gigantic statue of him. We were pleased to find that there weren't many other tourists around and at some points it seemed we were alone in the city while we walked around the cobble stone streets.




Trujillo has many well-preserved buildings including several churches and a castle which sits at the highest point of the city which served a strategic purpose in defending the town. The castle was also used in scenes from Game of Thrones, specifically Casterly Rock. I was interested to discover that there are less than 50 residences in the city center and that the majority of the buildings are restaurants, hotels, hostels or government buildings. 




We also drove the winding road to visit Guadalupe which is a World Heritage Site since 1993 and was named one of Spain's most beautiful towns. It is most famous for its St. Mary Monastery and the Virgen de Guadalupe which is a figure with dark skin with many devotees throughout the world. We arrived and took a tour of the monestary before having lunch and heading back. 





Overall our trip was nice and exhausting. We saw a lot of the beautiful towns that Extremadura has to offer and it made me want to go back and visit the more natural settings in the region. The one upside of traveling during COVID is the lack of people around so we were able to enjoy our visits without crowds and without waiting. In Spain in general during the summer lots of people flock to the coasts and the beaches which is understandable due to the heat. We in fact met a few families who were stopping at our hotel on their drive from the north of the country down to the beaches of Andalucia. This mass exodus of people to the beach means that other types of tourism like city escapes can be good if you can survive the heat (and maybe don't have three kids tagging along).


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