There's One Cool Thing In Zafra

I booked our room at the Palacios de los Duques de Feria.  It's a 15th century Gothic fortress-palace with eight towers and Renaissance patio of white marble from the 17th century.  Specifically it was founded in 1443, which means its 572 years old, or older than Columbus's discovery of the New World.

It's also a Parador.  In Spain, since 1928 Paradores are state-owned hotels, usually in a converted historic building such as a castle or monastery.  There are also paradors in Portugal.

Paradores can also be a modern hotel in a nature area with special appeal (such as our Parador in Cadiz, right next to the ocean) or with spectacular views of a monumental/historic city.

Puerto Rico and some South American countries have paradores.  There are an estimated 98 in Spain.

Anyhow, the special feature of this parador is that it's a fortress-palace.  You can go up to the parapets and towers, doing a nearly complete circuit of the towers and parapets -- all of which are crenellated, which is pretty cool.

It was declared a historical monument belonging to the National Treasury in 1931.  Our room was nice and big.  We were on the second floor, and we even had a huge patio right out our bathroom.  Go past the bathtub/shower, past the toilet, up the three steps, and outside.  If it weren't so raw and cold, it would have been nice to hang out there with a drink.  But it was raw and cold, so we didn't stay out long.

The ceiling of our bedroom had a beautiful original coffered ceiling from the 15th century.

But the thrill was going up to the fortress's parapets and towers, all of which are crenellated.  You can do nearly the full circuit, with less than five percent of the walls closed off.

The towers are accessible by extremely narrow stone stairs, but at least the stairs weren't wide enough to accommodate size 13 American feet.  Heck, they weren't big enough for Carol's feet.  So we gingerly went up the stairs to the towers, and came down even more cautiously.  It's not exactly ADA-complaint.

I ended up satisfied with climbing up to two towers, while Carol felt one was enough for her.  As I eyed going up a third, it occurred to me that I already had a pretty sense of what the views were like.

The entire time we were gallivanting around the parapets there was no one else up on the castle.  Which was pretty cool, as these photos:

View from the colonnaded

hallway outside our

room.  You can see one

main tower and part of another.

Check out the arched

arcades and the white

renaissance courtyard.

The fountain at the

center of the courtyard.

A belltower on a

nearby monastery.

A plaza, the Gothic church which

isn't really majestic, the mountains

south of Zafra, and a palm tree

from the parapets of the fortress.

Fighting men were not

quite as tall back then.

Tower, town, and pool

(too cold to open the pool).

Crenellated parapets and

my favorite blonde.  My

heart races at this picture.

When I said "narrow

steps" I wasn't joking.

A view from down below.

We ended up having a pre-dinner drink at the quiet but historically interesting bar.  We also decided since Zafra was quiet, we'd have a quiet evening by eating dinner at the Paradore.  The food was fantastic.

The next morning, we headed straight away to Merida, our next stop.