Trujillo

Trujillo was a poor frontier town on granite ground, and a striking number of the men who went to the Americas came from it and the surrounding country: Francisco Pizarro, who took Peru, his brothers, and Francisco de Orellana, who descended the Amazon. Those who returned built, and the Plaza Mayor is ringed by their palaces, notably the Palacio de la Conquista with a corner balcony carved with busts of Pizarro, the Inca princess Ines Yupanqui, their daughter Francisca and her husband Hernando Pizarro. An equestrian statue of Pizarro, made by an American sculptor in the 1920s, stands in the square. Above the town rise the medieval walls and a Muslim-built castle with cisterns and towers, and below spreads the dehesa.

History

Trujillo is identified with Roman Turgalium; after the Muslim conquest of 711 it became Targhālah, and between 1188 and 1195 it was the seat of the military order of Trujillo. Christian forces took it on 25 January 1232, Alfonso X granted it a fuero in 1256, and John II gave it the status of city in 1430 (Wikipedia, Trujillo, Spain).

What to look for

• The Plaza Mayor - a sloping granite square ringed by conquistador palaces.
• The Palacio de la Conquista - a corner balcony carved with Pizarro family busts.
• The Muslim castle - walls, towers and cisterns above the town.
• The dehesa - oak grazing country spreading from the walls.

When to go

March to June and September to November; Extremadura summers are extreme, regularly above forty degrees. The national cheese fair is held in the plaza in spring, and storks nest on the towers from winter onward.

Practical notes

Many palaces are private and seen only from outside. The climb to the castle is steep on granite cobbles. The plaza restaurants are pitched at visitors, and the town is quiet outside the centre.

Nearby

Caceres lies west; Guadalupe and the Villuercas hills are east.

Key facts