Extremadura

Extremadura is one of Spain's least-visited regions, a western borderland against Portugal that stayed largely unspoiled by mass tourism even as it produced some of the conquistadors who shaped the Americas — Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro were both born here. That relative obscurity is part of the appeal: Cáceres and Mérida both carry serious historical weight, with Mérida holding one of the best-preserved collections of Roman ruins anywhere in Spain, including a theatre still used for performances, and Cáceres's walled old town earning UNESCO World Heritage status largely intact from the medieval and Renaissance periods.

Extremadura's four festivals here range from the civic Feria de San Juan in Badajoz to WOMAD Cáceres, the free world-music festival that fills the city's medieval squares each May. The region's dehesa landscape — oak woodland pasture where Iberian pigs roam freely to produce Spain's prized jamón ibérico — defines both the countryside and the local table. Summers here run hot and dry; the region shares a continental-Mediterranean climate with neighbouring Castile.