Trujillo

The evening sun hits the granite walls first, turning them the colour of pale honey while the surrounding plain is already in shadow. From the ring-road car park above Trujillo you can watch the light slide downhill, past the castle ramparts, past the tower of Santa María, until it reaches the Plaza Mayor and the bronze statue of Francisco Pizarro glints like a struck match. At this hour the only sound is the clack-clack of storks on their chimney-top nests and, drifting upwards, the faint clatter of cutlery as waiters lay tables for dinner.

A Hill Made for Looking Outwards

Trujillo sits at 564 metres on a lump of granite that pokes above the flat dehesa of southern Cáceres. The position was chosen for defence, but it also gave the town a launching pad. Many of the men who walked these lanes shipped out to Peru, Mexico and Bolivia, came home rich, and built the stone palaces that now frame the main square. Their coats of arms – pumas, condors, towers dripping with Caribbean fruit – are carved above doorways along Calle de la Paloma and Plaza Mayor. You don’t need a guide to spot them; just look up.

The town still feels like a place that exports people rather than one that imports tourists. Resident numbers hover around 8,700, and outside Easter week or the May cheese fair you will share the streets mainly with grandparents on errands and the occasional British bird-watcher heading to Monfragüe. That may not last: the Telegraph has already warned readers to “visit now, before everyone else does”, and Madrid is only two hours and a quarter down the A-5 motorway. For the moment, however, Trujillo remains quiet enough that a waiter will walk you to the door to explain the difference between Ibérico de bellota and plain Serrano ham.

What the Stones Say

Start at the top. The castle began as a ninth-century Moorish outpost and grew heavier each century until the Catholic Monarchs added a keep and called it done. The battlements give a 270-degree sweep across olive groves, holm-oak pasture and, on clear winter days, the snow-dusted Sierra de Gredos 120 kilometres away. Inside the gate is the tiny ermita of the Virgen de la Victoria; locals still leave flowers here before bull-running festivals, even though the plaza de toros is nothing grander than a portable ring erected in the main square each September.

Walk downhill five minutes and the tower of Santa María la Mayor pops into view, its Romanesque base wearing a later Gothic crown. The interior is shadow-cool and smells of candle wax and old stone. A fifteenth-century altarpiece shows the Virgin flanked by conquistadors in full armour; Pizarro’s family paid for the panel on the right. The bell-tower can be climbed (€2, cash only, mornings only) for a pigeon-eye view of terracotta roofs and the nesting storks that arrive each February like clockwork.

From the church door, any street heading south will spill you into the Plaza Mayor within three minutes. The space is almost square but not quite, a subtle irregularity that softens the grandeur of the surrounding façades. On the west side the Palacio de la Conquista displays the crest of the Altamirano family – two lions chained to a pillar – while underneath, café tables spread across granite slabs polished smooth by centuries of market-day boots. House wine served here costs €2.80 a glass and arrives with a saucer of olives grown within sight of the town walls.

Eating Slowly, Sleeping Late

Extremaduran cooking is built for cold plateau nights and for travellers who had been living on ship’s biscuit. Portions are large, paprika is smoked, and everything is cooked with olive oil that could have been pressed in the adjoining province of Badajoz. Begin with half a Torta del Casar, the runny sheep-milk cheese protected by D.O.; restaurants will split one portion between two and provide extra bread for scooping. Follow with patatas meneás – potatoes fried with chorizo and sweet pimentón – then share a plate of secreto Ibérico, a marbled cut from behind the pig’s shoulder that eats like steak but costs half as much.

Kitchens close at 4 p.m. and reopen at 8.30, so plan a siesta. If you are staying inside the old walls, remember that most hotels are converted sixteenth-century houses: staircases spiral, ceilings dip, and wi-fi struggles through metre-thick masonry. The upside is waking to the sound of church bells rather than delivery vans. Light sleepers should request a room at the back; storks start clacking at dawn.

Beyond the Granite

Trujillo makes a convenient base for a three-day circuit. Drive 35 minutes north to Monfragüe National Park and stand on the castle battlements while griffon vultures glide past at shoulder height. Cáceres – another film-set old town, this one UNESCO-listed – is 40 minutes west and has evening shopping if you need a break from ham. Head south-east on the EX-390 and you reach Guadalupe’s royal monastery in under an hour, a detour that also passes cherry orchards and the log-cabin hamlet of Cañamero.

Back in Trujillo, two short walks repay sturdy shoes. A signed footpath leaves from the Puerta de Santiago, skirts olive groves and climbs gently to the Ermita de la Virgen de la Victoria on a neighbouring ridge; allow 45 minutes up, thirty down, and take water between May and October. For something flatter, drive three kilometres towards the A-5, park at the information hut, and follow the cattle track through dehesa where black Iberian pigs graze beneath holm oaks. You will see more pigs than people, and the only sound is the crunch of acorns.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

Spring brings daytime temperatures in the low twenties and a sprinkling of wildflowers between the granite boulders. Autumn is warmer, quieter and turns the surrounding oaks copper; both seasons are ideal. July and August can hit 38 °C by noon, and the stone streets radiate heat until well after dusk. If you must come in midsummer, sightsee before 11 a.m., retreat to your room during the furnace hours, then re-emerge after 7 p.m. when the Plaza Mayor fills with prams and guitar music.

Winter is crisp – 5 °C at dawn, 14 °C by lunch – and hotel prices drop by a third. The Christmas market sets up wooden stalls in the square and local bodegas serve thick hot chocolate with churros on Sunday mornings. January’s fiesta de San Antón is principally for villagers; visitors are welcome but English is scarce and the animal-blessing ceremony lasts exactly twelve minutes in the bitter wind.

Last Orders

Trujillo is not undiscovered – Spanish school parties arrive most mornings, and the Parador’s pool is elbow-to-elbow in August – but it has not yet remodelled itself for outsiders. Menus are still written only in Spanish, the castle keep has no hand-rail worthy of the name, and you will wait ten minutes for coffee while the owner finishes her own breakfast. These are not flaws; they are reminders that the town’s first duty is to its residents, not to the guidebook industry. Treat it as a place that happens to let you in for a few days, rather than a destination laid on for your entertainment, and the granite walls will repay you with the sort of evening light that makes conquistadors of us all.