Extremadura

The very name Extremadura, widely accepted as "the far end of the Duero," expresses the wild, remote, and isolated character of this haunting region. With its poor soil and minimal industry, Extremadura never experienced the kind of modern economic development typical of other parts of Spain but tourism to the region is steadily increasing. Also, in recent decades a series of dams has brightened Extremadura's agricultural outlook. All the same, it's hard to believe that, in the distant past, it was one of Spain's most important and wealthy regions. No other place in Spain has as many Roman monuments as Mérida, capital of the vast Roman province of Lusitania, which included most of the western half of the Iberian Peninsula. Mérida guarded the Vía de la Plata, the major Roman highway that crossed Extremadura from north to south, connecting Gijón with Seville. The economy and the arts declined after the Romans left, but the region revived in the 16th century, when explorers and conquerors of the New World—from Francisco Pizarro and Hernán Cortés to Francisco de Orellana, first navigator of the Amazon—returned to their birthplace. These men built the magnificent palaces that now glorify towns such as Cáceres and Trujillo, and they turned the remote monastery of Guadalupe into one of the great artistic repositories of Spain.