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Francisco Pizarro
The Virgin Mary
Alex
| Trujillo, an Extremaduran city about a half hour east of Cáceres was the home of Francisco Pizarro, the famous conqueror. Like many conquerors, Pizarro wasn't a very nice person. He is credited or blamed, depending on one's perspective, with destroying the Inca civilization in Peru. The Alexander Home Page is opposed to the wholesale destruction of civilizations, and, therefore, hereby condemns the actions of Pizarro! But we digress... |
A view of the Extremaduran countryside from atop the castle in
Trujillo.
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Although he may have been a merciless destroyer,
Pizarro lived in a nice little town. Today,
Pizarro is memorialized as the big green man who sits on the big
horse in the statue in Trujillo's Plaza Mayor (Main Square.)
(Here's an Alexander Home Page Fun Fact to share with your friends:
Trujillo's statue of Pizarro has an exact duplicate in Lima, Peru!)
Another highlight of the Plaza Mayor is "The Crazy Restaurant" (see related story, below.) At the Crazy Restaurant, the service is so, um, friendly, that if your guidebook didn't say "Spain" on the cover, you would probably think that you were in France!
The castle, or castillo, was, as might be expected, built upon the highest point in the city. It's not really a "tourist attraction" in the typical sense of the word. There are no lines, no entrance fees, no signs, no modern handrails, and no tour guides. It's just an old castle, and visitors can walk around, climb, and explore freely. Spain is evidently much less litigious than the United States. An American visitor can't help but notice that the castle has steep staircases and high walls with no
In America, of course, we need to be warned that hot coffee may be hot, and that we shouldn't operate heavy machinery after taking cold medicine. The lack of handrails and the like in Trujillo is, in a strange way, somewhat refreshing. Spaniards, it seems, take responsibility themselves for not falling to their deaths, while in America we need to be warned repeatedly. We then disregard these warnings and fall to our deaths anyway, leaving it to our heirs get a lawyer to sue whoever put up the warning signs for not putting up enough warning signs. But we're digressing again. Another highlight of the visit to Trujillo was "the scary bird room." It was in the Iglesia di Santa Maria, a little church in Pizarro's old neighborhood. While his parents sat quietly and looked around the church, Alex did a little exploring. Near the front of the church, to the left of the altar, Alex found a small staircase leading up and to the left. Alex coaxed his father to join him in exploring this new discovery. As father and son advanced, the steps spiraled outward and led into a silo of sorts, where the ground was covered with a layer of feathers, inches thick. The arrival of the two American tourists startled a flock of pigeons, and the silo echoed with the sound of the furious flapping of dozens of wings. It was strange and eerie, and the probability of getting pooped on was uncomfortably high. Nevertheless, Alex loved the scary bird room, and insisted on a repeat visit. Although the scary bird room probably isn't listed in any of the popular tour books, a church silo full of birds and feathers seems rather unique to us, and is one of the things of which Trujillo vacation memories are made.
THE
CRAZY
RESTAURANT No. No menu. It's morning, so you try to order breakfast, using what limited Spanish you know. "Huevos fritos?," you ask, as visions of fried eggs dance in your head. "No," says the waiter. You next try the word for breakfast. Perhaps, you think, this isn't a restaurant at all. "Desayunos?" The waiter nods and replies, "Si." Aha! It is a restaurant, and they do serve breakfast. Let's try ordering fried eggs again. "Huevos fritos?" The waiter again says "No," then turns on his heels and leaves. The above scenario actually occurred, with Alex's father in the role of the hungry diner, as Alex and his mother watched helplessly. With the waiter's departure, Alex's parents decided to get up from the table and find another restaurant. This confused Alex, who was still getting settled. To explain the sudden turn of events, Alex's father told him that "that restaurant doesn't have any food." After finding another restaurant on the Plaza Mayor that did have menus and food, Alex kept gazing back at the previous establishment in a mixture of confusion and wonder. "A restaurant with no food? What a crazy restaurant!" Once he returned to the United States, Alex enjoyed relating the tale of the crazy restaurant. "It didn't have any food!" he would say with a chuckle. "A restaurant with no food?!?" What a crazy restaurant.
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This statue, of Francisco Pizarro, in Trujillo's Plaza Mayor,
has an exact duplicate in Lima, Peru.
Alex liked "dinging" this ancient bell with a stick that he found.
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This staircase, along the castle wall, was surprisingly devoid of handrails and caution signs.
Apparently, there's less of a threat (and fear) of lawsuits in Spain than in the United States.
Alex and his father enjoy a snack in their room at the Parador de Turismo.
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