At the colonisation of the American lands. This momentous episode has been perfectly captured and encapsulated in some of this city’s buildings. Over five hundred of the most famous protagonists of the American adventure were born here: Pizarro, Francisco de Orellan, Alonso and Francisco Becerra, among others.

After Trujillo the Conquistadores Route continues to Montánchez, with striking remains of its doughty medieval castle.

The next stop on the route is Medellín, where Hernán Cortés was born. Its fort, built from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, is one of its most important sights; nearby lie the remains of a Roman theatre with some chunks and gates of the wall, such as La Portacoeli. The Iglesia de San Martín is an important parish church that still has the font where Cortés was baptised. In Medellín the River Guadiana is spanned by a bridge with a total of twenty arches. After passing through Don Benito, with a fine Herrerian Gothic Iglesia Santiago and the monument to the Guadiana, the route then heads for Villanueva de la Serena, hometown of Pedro Valdivia, the discoverer of Chile. We now enter the area known as Extremadura’s Siberia because of the freezing winter temperatures and the scenic resemblances with Siberia descried by the Duque de Osuna when he returned from his stint as ambassador in Russia. The next town we come to is Herrera del Duque, seigniory of the Duque de Osuna himself, with the sixteenth-century Iglesia de San Juan and an impressive Arab fort. Also worthy of note here is the arcaded Plaza Mayor with a twelve-jet fountain.

From Castilblanco de los Montes (a typical town of the district) we head for the Monasterio de Guadalupe, surrounded by a landscape of dehesasand broad-leaved woodland. In this monastery Christopher Columbus had an audience with the Catholic Monarchs before heading off for the Indies. Columbus’s devotion to this monastery is demonstrated by the fact that he gave the name of Guadalupe to one of the islands discovered on his second voyage to the Americas.

Guadalupe’s monastery is a site of pilgrimage and artistic treasures, but the hillside town of La Puebla de Guadalupe itself is a fascinating repository of the architectural styles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The monastery has an outstanding Gothic main front, flanked by the huge towers called Torre de la Portería and Torre de Santa Ana and fronted by a monumental and characteristic fountain. The most interesting sights inside are the Museo de Bordados, an embroidery museum, the chapter house, the sacristy and, of course, its cloisters, especially the Mudejar cloister with the pavilion called Templete del Lavatorio.

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