Spanish delight

From my vantage point, the town looked like it was carved from golden rock, its ramparts catching the light in soft honey tones, its church towers piercing the vast blue sky, with ungainly storks nesting on top of towers.

I was in Trujillo, one of Spain’s most atmospheric towns, rising from the Extremadura plains, close to the border with Portugal. My viewpoint was the Moorish fortress on the hill, built with weathered Roman stone, featuring cisterns and lofty towers, which was one of the locations for the show, ‘Game of Thrones’.

I arrived in the town just as the late afternoon sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the legendary Plaza Mayor. I felt like I had walked into a different century. This beautiful square was ringed by baroque and Renaissance palaces, whose façades glowed amber at sunset and swallows flew over my head.

In the middle was the large bronze green equestrian statue of Francisco Pizarro, Trujillo’s most infamous son, who defeated the Incas in the 1470s.

My stay in Trujillo was at a hotel housed in a former 16th-century convent of Santa Marta with cloisters and vaults. My guide, David Polo, explained that it was from this humble town that countless adventurers and nobles embarked to conquer the New World and this shaped the fabric of its streets.

Many locals returned with great riches, and built their flamboyant mansions and palaces, flaunting their wealth. Among them was Francisco de Orellana, who was the first European to explore River Amazon and Francisco Pizarro, who was the Governor of Peru.

I explored the San Martin de Tours church on the northeastern side of the square with both Gothic and Renaissance elements and a Baroque choir.

Echoes of the past

Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor is the epicentre of the city. It’s surrounded by arched porticos and lavish stone palaces built by returning conquistadors, men who crossed the Atlantic in search of fortune and returned with wealth and notoriety, as well as potatoes and tomatoes.

The town is lined with their stately homes, adorned with coats of arms, stone balconies, and ornate doorframes, harking back to a time when this region was an important one.

History whispers from every corner of the town. The city has been under the Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, Jews, and Christians in the past. Walking by these buildings, I can imagine the ships setting sail, encountering unknown continents, bringing back gold, stories, and influence that would reshape both Trujillo and the world. The town was a walled city and today four of the seven old city gates still remain.

Moorish castle

I climbed the narrow, steep stone-lined alleyways toward the Alcazaba, the Moorish castle that crowns the hill. Its thick, rugged walls seem grown from the mountain itself, and from its battlements the panoramic view was staggering: rolling plains, the red roofs and towers of the town.

Along the climb, we stopped at ancient churches like Santa María la Mayor which was built on the remains of a former Moorish mosque, with the tombs of adventurers like Pizarro and Santiago.

I enjoyed my quiet time in this tranquil sanctuary, filled with carved retablos, weathered frescoes and a Gothic altarpiece, gilded with gold leaf.

We dropped by at the monastery of Santa Maria de la Concepción, where cloistered nuns still sell almond biscuits and egg yolk sweets that they make. We rang a bell, gave our order to the nuns on the other side, and placed our money on a dumb waiter that rotated and gave us our order.

Culinary exploration

But Trujillo is not simply a monument to the past. In recent years, it has blossomed into one of rural Spain’s most exciting gastronomic centres. The Dehesa, Extremadura’s iconic landscape of open woodlands, grazing animals, and ancient oak trees produces flavours of great depth, and they are celebrated passionately in Trujillo.

Here, restaurants and small taverns showcase artisanal cheese, fragrant olive oils and smoky pimenton as well as local pork from pigs fed with acorns.

Over lunch, I tasted the most important cheese here called Torta del Casar, a gooey sheep’s milk cheese with a hard exterior, with an earthy, tangy flavour that has a history harking back to medieval times.

David explained that it was coagulated with a wild thistle which gives it that distinctive taste. Every spring, Trujillo hosts the National Cheese Festival which transforms Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor, with over 300 stalls overflowing with wheels, rounds, and wedges, soft, hard, smoked and aged.

Culture of paradors 

We dropped in at the Parador de Trujillo, set in the former Franciscan convent of Santa Clara founded in 1533, with arches, vaulted ceilings and courtyards. Paradors are state-run historic hotels across Spain that preserve castles, monasteries, palaces, and fortresses and give travellers the chance to stay in places steeped in history.

Trujillo holds its history and traditions with pride; farmers still tend the dehesa, shepherds guide their flocks across fields, artisans craft cheese and olive oil with skills passed down through generations. As I watched the last sunset from the Plaza Mayor, the sky turning apricot, I felt the tranquillity of a place that honours its past while continuing to march into the future.