Private Extremadura Tours: Spain Without the Crowds

What does a licensed guide show you in Extremadura?

Your licensed guide shapes each day around what you love, and with three UNESCO World Heritage sites within easy reach of one another, the old towns rarely feel crowded. The licensed guides we work with are highly educated local experts in Roman and medieval history.

Mérida, a Roman capital still in use

Augustus founded Augusta Emerita in 25 BC for veterans of his wars in northern Spain, and it became the capital of Lusitania, the Roman province that covered most of what is now Portugal. Its theater, built around 16 BC, still stages Greek and Roman plays each July and August in the International Classical Theatre Festival, first staged there in 1933. Your guide links the theater, the amphitheater, the Temple of Diana and the Roman bridge across the Guadiana, among the longest surviving from antiquity, while storks nest on the arches of the Los Milagros aqueduct. The Roman city is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Cáceres, a walled city built for the camera

Inside its Almohad walls, the old town of Cáceres keeps Gothic and Renaissance palaces crowned with towers and family crests, and almost nothing modern breaks the skyline. In Game of Thrones it stood in for the streets of King’s Landing, and in House of the Dragon for Flea Bottom. At dusk the stone turns gold under the lights. A few streets away, the Helga de Alvear museum holds one of Europe’s major private collections of contemporary art, more than 3,000 works given to Extremadura by the German-born Madrid gallerist Helga de Alvear.

Trujillo, the conquistadors’ hometown

Francisco Pizarro was born in Trujillo, and the palaces around its Plaza Mayor were built with fortunes brought back from the Americas. His bronze statue in the square is the work of an American sculptor, Charles Cary Rumsey, and its twin stands in Buffalo, New York. Above the town, the Moorish castle served as Casterly Rock in Game of Thrones, with sweeping views across the plains.

Guadalupe, the monastery behind a Caribbean island

Columbus came here on pilgrimage to give thanks after his first voyage, and in 1493 he named the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe after the Virgin of the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe. The monastery’s sacristy hangs a series of paintings by Zurbarán in their original setting, and the whole complex is a UNESCO World Heritage site, set in the Villuercas hills about an hour from Trujillo.

Zafra, a stop on the road from Seville

About halfway on the drive north from Seville to Cáceres, Zafra makes an easy stop, and locals still call it Sevilla la Chica, little Seville. The castle-palace built in 1437 by the first Count of Feria, with towers at each corner and a Renaissance courtyard, is now a four-star Parador, and its restaurant serves lunch inside the old walls. A few steps away, the arcaded Plaza Grande, lined with palm trees, opens through the little Arquillo del Pan into the Plaza Chica, where tapas bars and cafés fill the arches. On request, a guide leads a short walk through the old town, or you simply stop for a coffee or a bite before continuing north.