Extremadura Day 2

So the conference I was attending was a combination of a national Spanish conference generically related to computer science alongside an international workshop on gerontechnology. The first couple of days, the technical talks of the conference were entirely in Spanish. So we participated in the social events but spent the time of the talks doing some sightseeing. On Monday (Labor Day), we rented a car (manual transmission!) and drove to the towns of Trujillo and Guadalupe.

This first view is of the walk up into Trujillo after parking at the bottom of the hill.

We started by visiting the castle in Trujillo. It has a very interesting history starting as an Arab fortress in the 9th century and then rebuilt in the 13th century. There are some sweeping views of Trujillo and the Extremaduran countryside from up here (which looked surprisingly familiar to us).

Inside one of Trujillo's churches...

More views of walking in Trujillo...

This is the Plaza Mayor in Trujillo. One of the interesting things about Extremadura is that it is the region of Spain where many of the conquistadors hail from. In particular, Pizarro is from Trujillo (we visited an interesting museum in his home). So this statue of Pizarro graces the main square. However, the statue was originally carved to be Cortés as a gift to Mexico. Mexico, understandably, didn't think all that much of Cortés so they rejected the gift, which was then repurposed to be Pizarro in Trujillo.

From Trujillo, we moved on to Guadalupe. Which is known for being the original hometown of my host in Cáceres and also for the site of The Royal Monastery of Santa María of Guadalupe. We had lunch in the monastery's restaurant, which was located in the cloister in the secular part of the monastery (where the royalty stayed when visiting).

After lunch, we took guided tour of the monastery (in Spanish). No photos inside, and it was beautiful. We were allowed to take photos out front and in the main cloister.

We drove back (the long way!) to Cáceres for a dinner Monday evening in the city.