11 Best Sights in Extremadura, Spain

The Casa de las Veletas (House of the Weather Vanes) is a 12th-century Moorish mansion that is now used as the city's museum. Filled with archaeological finds from the Paleolithic through Visigothic periods, the museum also includes an art section with works by El Greco, Picasso, and Miró. The highlight is the superbly preserved Moorish cistern—the aljibe—with horseshoe arches supported by mildewy stone pillars.

Travel back a few centuries in Cáceres's Ciudad Monumental (aka "casco antiguo" or "ciudad vieja"), one of the best-preserved medieval quarters in Europe. It's so convincingly ancient that Game of Thrones used it as a filming location. There isn't a single modern building to detract from its aura, a testament to the fact that Cáceres became a backwater plagued by war after Spain's Golden Age. It's virtually deserted in winter and occasionally dusted with a light coating of snow—a fairy-tale sight. Most of the city's main monuments are located here, but of Cáceres's approximately 100,000 residents, fewer than 400 reside within this tiny enclave.

This is Trujillo's old town, enclosed by restored stone walls. Follow them along Calle Almenas, which runs west from the Palacio de Orellana-Pizarro, beneath the Alcázar de Los Chaves, a castle-fortress that was converted into a lodge in the 15th century and hosted dignitaries including Ferdinand and Isabella. Now a college, the building has seen better days. Continue west along the wall to the Puerta de San Andrés, one of La Villa's four surviving gates (there were originally seven). Views from the hilltop are particularly memorable at sunset, when spotlights illuminate the old quarter.

In the heart of La Vera—a region of steep gargantas (ravines), rushing rivers, and sleepy villages—lies the Monasterio de San Jerónimo de Yuste, founded by Hieronymite monks in the early 15th century. Badly damaged in the Peninsular War, it was left to decay after the suppression of Spain's monasteries in 1835, but has since been restored by the Hieronymites. Today it's one of the most impressive monasteries in all of Spain. Carlos V (1500–58), founder of Spain's vast 16th-century empire, spent his last two years in the Royal Chambers, enabling the emperor to attend mass within a short stumble of his bed. The guided tour also covers the church, the crypt where Carlos V was buried before being moved to El Escorial (near Madrid), and a glimpse of the monastery's cloisters.

Mérida's Roman teatro (theater) and anfiteatro (amphitheater) are set in a verdant park, and the theater—the best preserved in Spain—seats 6,000 and is used for a classical drama festival each July. The amphitheater, which holds 15,000 spectators, opened in 8 BC for gladiatorial contests. Next to the entrance to the ruins is the main tourist office, where you can pick up maps and brochures. You can buy a ticket to see only the Roman ruins or, for a bit more, an entrada conjunta (joint admission), which also grants access to the crypt of the Basílica de Santa Eulalia and to the Alcazaba. To reach the monuments by car, follow signs for Museo de Arte Romano. Parking is usually easy to find.

After a day spent meandering through medieval passageways and marveling at ancient churches, this contemporary art museum, presided over by one of Europe's great modern art collectors, is a breath of fresh air. Highlights include sculptures by Ai Weiwei and Dan Graham and paintings by Josef Albers and John Baldessari. A much-anticipated renovation by Tuñón Arquitectos (of Atrio fame), finished in 2021, added soaring galleries and multimedia spaces to house the gallerist's entire collection. If visiting on a weekend, be sure to reserve entry in advance online.

Across the street from the entrance to the Roman sites and connected by an underground passage is Mérida's superb Roman art museum, in a building designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo. Walk through a series of passageways to the luminous, cathedral-like main exhibition hall, which is supported by arches the same proportion and size (50 feet) as the Roman arch in the center of Mérida, the Arco de Trajano (Trajan's Arch). Exhibits include mosaics, frescoes, jewelry, statues, pottery, household utensils, and other Roman works. The crypt beneath the museum contains the remains of several homes and a necropolis that were uncovered while the museum was being built in 1981.

The first thing that grabs your attention at this museum—located 14 km (9 miles) outside town—is the landscape that surrounds it: the Los Barruecos nature reserve. Spanning 800 acres, the park's otherworldly landscape comprises rolling grasslands, lakes, and enormous, peculiarly shaped boulders, which you can explore on foot. These curious natural forms inspired Wolf Vostell, a German artist of the Fluxus and Happening movements, to turn a defunct yarn factory within the park into a museum. Today you can still take in his bizarre, thought-provoking work—including a Cadillac surrounded by dinner plates and a wall of rusty Guardia Civil motorcycles.

At the junction of the rivers Tiétar and Tajo, 20 km (12 miles) south of Plasencia on the EX208 and 60 km (37 miles) southwest of La Vera via the EX203, lies Extremadura's only national park. This rocky, mountainous wilderness is known for its diverse plant and animal life including lynxes, boars, deer, foxes, black storks, imperial eagles, and the world's largest colony of black vultures, attracting bird-watchers from around the world. Bring binoculars and head for the lookout point called Salto del Gitano (Gypsy's Leap), on the C524 just south of the Tajo River—vultures can often be spotted wheeling in the dozens at close range. The park's visitor center and main entrance is in the hamlet of Villareal de San Carlos.

One of the finest plazas in Spain, this Renaissance gem is dominated by a bronze equestrian statue of Francisco Pizarro—the work of American sculptor Charles Rumsey. Notice the Palacio del Marqués de la Conquista, the most dramatic building on the square with plateresque ornamentation and imaginative busts of the Pizarro family flanking its corner balcony. It was built by Francisco Pizarro's half-brother Hernando.

Looming in the background of the Plaza Mayor is the late-Gothic facade of Guadalupe's colossal monastery church, flanked by battlement towers. The (required, Spanish-only) guided tour begins in the Mudejar cloister and continues on to the chapter house, with hymnals, vestments, and paintings including a series of small panels by Zurbarán. The ornate 17th-century sacristy has a series of eight Zurbarán paintings, from 1638 to 1647. These austere representations of monks of the Hieronymite order and scenes from the life of St. Jerome are the artist's only significant paintings housed in the setting for which they were intended. The tour concludes in the garish late-baroque Camarín, the chapel where the famous Virgen Morena (Black Virgin) is housed. Each September 8, the virgin is brought down from the altarpiece and walked around the cloister in a procession with pilgrims following on their knees. Outside, the monastery's gardens have been restored to their original, geometric Moorish style.