We Practically Had The Town Of Trujillo To Ourselves

We left Caceres early in the morning with the goals of spending time in Trujillo and Guadalajara before making the long drive to Madrid.  From a time standpoint I wasn't sure about going to Trujillo, so I had only done some research on it.  Marco talked us into stopping on our way to Guadalajara.

It was about a 50 minute drive to Trujillo, so we got there around 9am, parked, and our GPS suddenly didn't work. 

Carol and I had a modest disagreement about which way to go to get to the town center, which is known for having multiple medieval and renaissance buildings.  It's also the birthplace and childhood homes of Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish Conquistador famous for conquering the Inca Empire, and Francisco de Orellana, a Conquistador famous for completing the first navigation through the entire length of the Amazon.

The disagreement centered on where to go.  Carol wanted to go to a nearby church a bit lower than the parking garage which was already in a low part of town.  I wanted to head up, using my guy explorer logic that towns and cities back then were built on the highest point around.  

I'm not saying proved to be right, because Carol will read this and I have to keep her happy, but if you go to Trujillo, remember that all of the old cool buildings are up at the top of the hill.  

It turns out the town of approximately 9,000 inhabitants was settled on a granite knoll at the top, so it was easily fortified.  It was settled in prehistoric times on a granite batholith, even though I didn't what a batholith is until I looked it up.  Hopefully our niece, Ally, who knows a lot about geology/rocks, knows what a batholith is (yes, this is a test to see if she reads the blog -- our neighbors the Ammons successful passed the test from a Merida blog post!).

In Roman times known as Turgalium, then colonized by Visigoths and other rando East Germanic tribes.  The town spent more than four hundred years under control of the Muslims, and then was swapped back and forth between the Muslims and the Reconquista efforts.

We hiked up the quiet streets in cool, almost cold weather, finally coming to the Plaza Mayor, which has a number of beautiful arcaded manor houses.  This was close to 9:30, and the town still showed no evidence of awakening from its slumber.

The Plaza is dominated not by the large church, but by the solitary statue of Francisco Pizzaro on horseback.

Out of all the brilliance in Trujillo's Plaza

Mayor, the Pizarro on horseback statue

draws your eye.

From there we continued to head uphill, past three churches from the 14th through 16th, through the Puerta de Santiago, past more towers and churches, until reaching the House of Pizarro, which is a museum that was not open yet.  There are also multiple palaces open to the public, except while we were there.  

I would have like to gone into the palaces, but it's fine they were closed (it was a Monday, so maybe they don't even open on Mondays).  It was a nice stroll through the town.  

Eventually we reached the top, which affords wonderful views in all directions of the town and the land beyond.  The Muslim-built Alcazaba dominates the very top of the town, built on the aforementioned batholith.  It was not open yet, but again, we were there to wander aimlessly through the town.  We traipsed back down through the town to the parking garage. 

Trujillo has a lot of charm, so be sure stop there if you are doing a swing through Extramadura.