Caceres - Trujillo - Guadalupe

We spent this past weekend on an API trip through the Extremadura region of Spain. Our first stop was a 2.5 hour bus ride to Caceres. We only stopped for a few hours to explore the city and as it was a bright and sunny day we enjoyed our time eating ice cream and strolling around. Not much too unique to see but it was a cute town. Then we hopped back on the bus and took a 45 minute drive to the Vostell Museum - a modern art museum created by German artist, Wolf Vostell. We had a tour which explained the meanings of the quite abstract pieces of art, mostly compiled of cars, cement and televisions. By the time we finished there it was almost 8pm and we still had an hour drive to Trujillo where we stayed the night. We arrived exhausted from the heat of the long day to find the most comfortable beds at our favorite NH hotel (converted from a castle!) Trujillo was a small village we didn't even have time to explore as we passed out by 10pm!

Map of trails

The next morning was our hiking day. We left Trujillo around 10am and drove to our starting point a few towns away. We stopped to grab water and snacks, then set off.

View from thehike

It was about a 5 hour hike to total, with some quick breaks and a lunch stop half way. The views were beautiful and the weather was ideal - sunny and hot! We stopped to eat lunch at el castaño, a one-thousand year old chestnut tree! Our hike had led us to a small town called Guadalupe, where we would be staying that night in the Monastary (partly converted into a hotel). Again, we were pretty beat. We showered and then crawled into bed for a bit, only waiting for dinner a few hours later. We were pretty tired but getting pretty hungry as well. We decided to grab a quick caña and tapa and explore the town while waiting for dinner. Well our "exploring" the town took about 10 minutes before we realized there was only a tiny downtown and the rest was residential. We wasted an hour chatting and munching and then headed back for dinner (with API at the hotel).

Our last day was pretty low key as well. We had a short tour of the monastery before more free time in the center. Since there wasn't much too do there we were all pretty eager to just hop in the bus and fall asleep as it was a long trip. Although it wasn't the most busy of trips it was definitely one of my favorites so far. It was a relaxing time all weekend and I was so exhausted each night that I had the most peaceful sleeps.