6 Best Sights in Extremadura, Spain

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.

Mérida's main square is lively day and night. The oldest building is a 16th-century palace, now the Hotel Ilunion Mérida Palace. Behind it stretches Mérida's most charming area, with Andalusian-esque white houses shaded by palms, in the midst of which stands the Arco de Trajano, part of a Roman city gate. It's a great place to people-watch over tapas at sunset.

In this orange-tree-lined plaza you'll find the 15th-century church of San Vicente Ferrer with an adjoining convent that's now the Parador de Plasencia.

East of the Plaza de San Vicente Ferrer, at the other end of the Rúa Zapatería, is this cheerful arcaded square. The mechanical figure clinging to the town-hall clock tower depicts the clockmaker and is called the Mayorga in honor of his Castilian hometown. Also east of the Plaza de San Vicente you can find a large section of the town's medieval wall beside a heavily restored Roman aqueduct.

This long, inclined, arcaded plaza contains several cafés, the tourist office, and—on breezy summer nights—nearly everyone in town. In the middle of the arcade opposite the old quarter is the entrance to the lively Calle General Ezponda, lined with tapas bars, student hangouts, and discotecas that keep the neighborhood electric with activity until dawn. The city's main Christmas market, selling candles, figurines, and sweets, is held here.

In the middle of this tiny, irregularly shaped plaza—which is transformed during festivals into a bullring—is the 15th-century fountain where Columbus's two Native American servants were baptized in 1496. Here, as is the case across Extremadura, there's a conspicuous lack of reckoning or awareness regarding the region's role in the horrors of colonizing the Americas.