Fin de Semana en Extremadura

Weekend in Extremadura

Yesterday I posted some comments about the beginning of our trip to Extremadura, the home of many Conquistadors and lots of well preserved medieval structures. Little wonder why it would be of interest to a group of history majors and an amateur history buff. We based in Trujillo and took a side day trip to Guadalupe, the site of a church and monastery dating from the early 14th Century.

Trujillo is small and one doesn't need a car to get around. We parked the "Beast" at the hotel and only used it to go out of town. Driving a Mercedes van in those tiny, medieval streets would have been asking for a collect call from the insurance company. We got in late afternoon on Thursday and agreed to meet the others at around 7:30 PM in the plaza. The town was dead by Sevillano standards where people go out for pre-dinner strolls and drinks at 10:00 PM. It was a week night and there weren't a lot of tourists so we found a restaurant and our group of seven was the entire clientele. The food ranged from OK to not very good.

We wrapped it up around 11:00 PM and agreed to meet the group for breakfast in the plaza the next morning. It was raining, the first Karen and I had seen since Germany over a month ago. We had breakfast and began walking up the hill to the walled part of the city and the Iglesia Santa Maria de Mayor, built in the 13th Century.

While we were walking around inside the lights kept going out making it difficult to take pictures. I found a not so intuitivly obvious box on the wall that when one inserts one Euro the lights turn on for five minutes. (Thought to self: I need that in my house so we can pay the light bill a little at a time. Maybe even visitors can help.) We walked up a tiny stone staircase not knowing what was at the top and found another staircase and another and another. At the top of the last one was the bell tower with a great view of the town and surrounding countryside.

















After we had been up there for a few minutes I realized it was four minutes before noon. I wasn't sure when the bells were rung but pretty sure one of the times would be noon. I mentioned this to the group and as Karen and I decided to go back down, the others decided to stay and hear the bells up close and personal. I lost more than my share of hearing during 27 years in the Army.

After the rest of the group came out of the church with ears ringing we walked a bit further up the hill to the Alcazar, a castle built in the 10th Century as a Muslim fortress. The entrance is through a Moorish arch into a courtyard and one can walk around the perimeter from atop the walls. It was easy to spot the church tower we had been in a short while before.





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More about Trujillo (Conquistadors Pizarro and Orellano) and our side trip to Guadalupe tomorrow as it's after midnight again.