Guadalupe is a municipality located in Las Villuercas comarca, province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain with currently just over 2,000 inhabitants. We stayed in the Parador hotel right in the middle of the city. The hotel is a combination of a 16th century school and 15th century San Juan Bautista Hospital. The courtyards are very inviting and there is even a nice little pool that Owen enjoyed swimming around. The main attraction is without a doubt the monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe. The monastery was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. The foundation dates back to 1337, but construction continued on the site resulting in quite the hybrid of architectural styles. The church and cloister is with the Mudéjar style from the 14th and 15th century. The sacristy was built between 1638 and 1647. The chapel has 17th century tombs. The Monastery symbolises two significant events in world history that occurred in the same year, 1492, namely the final expulsion of the Muslim power from the Iberian Peninsula and the discovery of the American continent by Christopher Columbus. Its influence on the evangelization of the Americas was substantial; the statue of Santa María de Guadalupe became a powerful symbol of the Christianization of much of the New World. The Monastery was, and remains, a center of pilgrimage for the Western world and Latin America.
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