Pablo de Ronda has visited Extremadura twice – once about 20 years ago and again recently. In Part 1 he described his first visit in 2002. In Part 2 he covers the 5-day visit he and his wife Rita have just completed.

19 years since my last visit it was time for me to revisit Extremadura. This time I wanted to check out all seven of the paradores located in the region.

And I wanted to show my wife Rita this beautiful part of Spain, which is located slightly off the beaten track.

Once again, I bought a Five-Night Card, for just 600€. That works out at 120€ per night, breakfast included, and 20% discount on all food purchased in the parador.

I am also an Amigo de Paradores which means there are certain perks like discounted parking, a welcome drink on arrival, and occasional special offers such as tours or other activities.

In addition, for every 3 euros spent you get a point. And what do points mean? Prizes!

Well in the case of this loyalty scheme, you can exchange points for accommodation or meals. In the old days I had many a free night’s accommodation for my accumulated Amigo points.

Sunday 3 October 2021

On this trip we stayed in different paradores than my previous trip, except for Zafra, the most southerly one, which is just three hours from Ronda. So, we spent the first night there.

The parador is in a 15^th century castle-palace built on the remains of an Arab fortress. Rita loved it.

We paid a small supplement to get upgraded to a larger room.

After a stroll through the old part and a light lunch in the Plaza Chica, just off the Plaza Mayor, we took a siesta before dressing up for dinner. We ate well in the parador restaurant, Rita “maining” on lomo de ternera and me on a leg of baby goat. Mmmm!

Monday 4 October 2021

The following morning, after a hearty breakfast, we had a look around Zafra before heading north.

We called in to look at the parador in Plasencia – a 15^th century former monastery. Beautiful. It was very busy so we didn’t stay long.

A further hour’s drive brought us to our parador for the night, in Jarandilla de la Vera. Well, we thought Zafra and Plasencia were both excellent, but Jarandilla was simply stunning. A 15^th century castle-cum-palace, it seemed perfect in every way.

After a very late lunch (ca. 5.00 pm) we took some photos and wandered around the sleepy town. Then after a short siesta, it was time to eat again!

The parador restaurant was packed! Once again our dinner was excellent.

We try to focus on local dishes, so we shared a partridge salad before we both had poached salmon with a dressing of crema de espinacas on a bed of boulanger potatoes. Washed down with a bottle of locally-produced Sauvignon Blanc.  Muy rico.

Tuesday 5 October 2021

Day 3 began again with a huge breakfast, before we headed off to Guadalupe to check out the parador there. I had been before, 19 years ago, but for Rita it was new.

Such a pretty parador, a former hospital (15^th century), with a gorgeous patio full of lemon trees.

We went to see the Black Virgin in the basilica before returning to the parador for lunch in the aforementioned patio.

We shared two dishes:  an ensalada de naranjas and vieiras gratinadas (coquilles St Jacques). Just right .

Then it was on to Trujillo, our resting place for the next two nights.

The parador here, a former castle, stands at the top of the town. It is just a few minutes’ walk to the impressive Plaza Mayor, which boasts an imposing statue of Francisco Pizarra, born here and the conqueror of Peru.

The first night we dined in the parador restaurant. The food was unremarkable, so much so that I can’t even remember what we had.

Wednesday 6 October 2021

We drove to Cáceres to check out the parador and the city. The zona monumental, where the parador is located, was a delight. Lots of old buildings and narrow cobbled streets largely free of traffic.

The Cáceres parador was old on the outside and modern inside. Not our favourite, but clearly popular with others, as to stay there with the Five-Night Card you have to pay a supplement of 60€!

We had lunch at a restaurant in the Plaza Mayor. I had a menu of the day and Rita chose carrilleras (carrilladas or pork cheeks to us!)

We drove on ordinary roads back to the parador in Trujillo and had a rest before ambling down to the square for a light dinner in the Plaza Mayor there. Just to make a change from the somewhat samey parador offer.

Thursday 7 October 2021

After breakfast in Trujillo we drove to Mérida, parked at the parador, checked in and went for a nice relaxed lunch in the patio. The parador here was an 18^th century convent and very spacious.

After a siesta we went for a stroll and took some nice photos of the Alcazaba (9^th century Arab fortress) and the Roman bridge.

The menu at the parador offered some things we’d not previously had, so we dined in. What a good decision. We shared a starter, beef croquetas , then Rita had atún con algas (seaweed) and I chose filete de dorada (gilt head bream). A couple of glasses of a local white and we were well set for a good night’s sleep!

Friday 8 October 2021

As is my wont, I went in search of an early morning coffee.

Finding a café open early when away from home is easier said than done, however. In a couple of places on this tour of Extremadura it has entailed walking or driving around darkened streets until I spotted shadowy figures huddled together or a dimly lit bar.

Here in Mérida it was easy; I just headed for the Plaza de España, 5 minutes’ walk from the parador, and the Bar Arcada was waiting for me with open arms.

Full of regulars and early work starters, as are all early bars, it's great fun to listen in and sometimes to join in. Trouble is, once they find out I'm British, they only want to talk about - you guessed it - BREXIT! No Spaniard understands why we would want to leave the EU. Them and me both!

After our final hearty breakfast for a while we packed, paid the bill and loaded the car.

Then it was off to do a bit of Roman culture. We headed for the theatre and the amphitheatre where we got to use our Tarjeta sesentycinco for the first time to get a 50% discount on the price of admission.

The restoration of these two Roman monuments has been tastefully done and the results are really stunning. We passed a good hour there and took some great photos.

After a bit of window shopping on the way back to the car, we said our farewells to Mérida before setting off back to Andalucía and Ronda.

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It probably sounds like we had a hedonistic week, over-indulging on delicious food. Well, we did, but surprisingly I hadn’t put on a single gram in weight!

Postscript:

We had a great week, well deserved after a tough year dealing with Covid-19 and its after effects.

We visited all seven paradores in Extremadura and stayed in four.

We rank the paradores themselves as follows:

• Jarandilla de la Vera
• Guadalupe
• Zafra
• Trujillo
• Mérida
• Cáceres
• Plasencia

As regards the towns where the paradores are located, our rank order is:

• Guadalupe
• Mérida
• Trujillo
• Cáceres
• Zafra
• Plasencia
• Jarandilla

Plasencia is low on both lists, which is somewhat unfair, in that we spent so little time there. It is in fact a very beautiful parador housed in a former convent built in the 15^th Century. The town is also bustling and full of life.

Pablo de Ronda has visited Extremadura twice – once about 20 years ago and last week. In Part 1 he describes his first visit in 2002.

I went on a parador tour to Extremadura in 2002 with my first wife Jeryl and my son Tom. We had a Five-Night card which gave us five nights’ accommodation at a discounted rate. I can’t remember how much we paid back then - could have been 400€ - but it seemed like a bargain at the time. Especially as we stayed in some fantastic places.

We flew to Madrid, picked up a really dodgy hire car and headed west. First stop was Plasencia. The parador there is in the former convent of Santo Domingo dating from the 15^th century. What a stunning place.

The day got even better when I discovered that my favourite Spanish group, Radio Tarifa, was due to play in the square that night. What an amazing coincidence!

This multi-national music ensemble, combined Flamenco, Arab-Andalusian music, Arabic music, Moorish music and other musical influences of the Mediterranean, the Middle Ages and the Caribbean. The name Radio Tarifa  comes from an imaginary radio station in Tarifa, a small town in the Spanish province of Cádiz, Andalusia, the closest part of Spain to Morocco.

And what a great concert it was! In the interval I approached the bass player, who I knew was English, and had a great chat. David Purdye, a Geordie, had joined the band as a temporary replacement. Despite having no Spanish, he was still with the band several years later ….. and loving it.

I was to see the group perform live twice more, later that year in the huge capacity Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and a year later in a sports hall in Warrington, with a capacity of about 20. Down on their luck, or what? Radio Tarifa split up in 2006, their lead singer and driving force died in 2012 and that was effectively that for this unique band. They left a great legacy though! I listen to them often.

After two nights in Plasencia we headed into the hills to Guadalupe.

The parador here also dates from the 15^th century, but this time it was a former hospital, St John the Baptist. Simple, but delightful, with extensive gardens. The basilica here is home to the black virgin of Guadalupe.

Our final stop was Zafra, where the parador is in an old castle, also dating from the 15^th century. The internal patio, used as the restaurant, was a charming place to sit and eat the delicious local food.

Two nights there and it was off back to Madrid to catch our flight home to Manchester.

What a great week! A truly Magical History Tour.

Banks are lobbing charges on current accounts without warning customers. Some customers now pay 240 euros a year just to have an account. Pablo de Ronda investigates.

The biggest high street banks in Spain have tightened their special conditions for clients who want free banking.

Some banks are charging their customers up to 240 euros a year - in other words 20 euros a month - just for having an account with them. The commissions for the most basic financial services keep going up and the conditions demanded by some banks to exempt their clients from these charges are increasingly severe.

This is the way the banking sector has decided to increase its own income in a scenario of negative interest rates.

In the first six months of 2021 all the big banks increased their earnings from commissions, as they themselves reveal in their results. The five biggest banks in the country alone earned more than 10 billion euros just through charges and commissions.

In the case of Málaga-based Unicaja Banco (which is the fifth biggest in the country after its merger with Liberbank), between January and June 2021 it earned 10.6 per cent more from commissions than in the same period last year.

This increased income from commissions is not coincidental, but the result of an active policy of charging more and imposing conditions which are difficult to meet.

There is a double objective to this policy: they want to encourage more of their most loyal customers to contract financial products such as insurance, pension plans and investment funds, and they want to earn more from customers who merely have an account with them.

Numerous complaints

This strategy of increasing commissions and making it harder for clients to be exempt from them has resulted in increased conflict between the banks and consumers.

According to Banco de Espana, the number of complaints from customers about current accounts rose last year by nearly 50 per cent to 4,153. Most of the complaints were about the higher charges, where the number almost doubled, to 2,134. Complaints about bank commissions now account for ten per cent of the total.

Let’s look at some examples of what banks are now charging:

Santander

At the end of last year the leading Spanish bank, Santander, began to charge 240 euros a year instead of 144 (in other words, 66.7 per cent more), just for maintaining its One account. That charge applies to clients who do not fulfil the requirements for exemption: having a salary or pension of at least 600 euros a month paid into their account, three direct debits every three months and paying with a card six times in three months. If a client does not fulfil any of those three requirements, they will pay 240 euros a year. If they only fulfil the first one, they will pay 120 euros and if they fulfil the first one and one of the others they won't pay any account maintenance charges at all.

CaixaBank

CaixaBank is the other bank at the top of the list of maintenance charges for account holders. Since October 2020 it has been charging 240 euros a year. If customers don't want to pay charges, they have to fulfil several requirements: pay a salary of at least 600 euros a month or a pension of 300 euros directly into their account, or have more than 20,000 euros in investment funds, savings or pension plans, as well as paying three bills through the account or making three purchases with their card every quarter. If they only have their salary or pension paid in the bank charges 60 euros a year.

BBVA

In June2021 BBVA also tightened its conditions for those who want to avoid maintenance charges. The group announced that it would be charging 160 euros a year for clients who did not meet its conditions, justifying the decision by blaming "the economic situation following the health crisis, and the evolution of the financial markets".

To avoid paying commissions customers have to fulfil three criteria: income paid in (salary of more than 800 euros, pension or benefit of more than 300 euros, or periodic credits of more than 800 euros a month); payments through the account (five bills in four months or seven credit card purchases in four months) and products (loan, mortgage, insurance, investment funds, savings plans or insured incomes, or three payments of 200 euros by card in four months).

BancSabadell

BancSabadell, and its subsidiary Solbank, in the meantime, increased its commissions for account maintenance twice last year, the first to 60 euros a year and the second to 120.

To avoid having to pay these, clients have to take out some type of insurance or loan or have at least 10,000 euros in investment funds with the bank, as well as having income of at least 700 euros a month paid directly into their account.

Unicaja Banco

In March, Unicaja Banco told its customers that charges were going up for those who did not fulfil the requirements of its Zero Commission Plan: a salary, pension or unemployment payment of 600 euros or more paid directly into the account, or regular credits of at least 7,200 euros a year; pay at least 1,200 euros a year by credit card or a minimum of two operations a month; and have an insurance policy through the bank, or have a minimum balance of 6,000 euros in the account or in other products (investment funds, pension plans or savings).

Only those who fulfil all these requirements will be exempt from commissions. Those who only fulfil some of them will pay 60 euros a year and those who don't fulfil any of them will have to pay 120 euros.

Credit and Debit Cards

In addition to the cost involved in having a simple bank account there is commission for other basic services such as a debit card. Most banks have stopped offering these free of charge, unless the client fulfils the conditions listed above.

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On a personal level I have accounts at two banks. My main account is at BancSabadell, where I fulfill their requirements and have free banking, including my credit and debit cards.

I have also had an account with Unicaja for over 20 years. They have just started to charge me 60 euros a year, despite always having had free banking up to now.

I don’t fulfill one of their requirements and they are not prepared to be flexible and make an exception, so I am going to close the account and switch to CaixaBank, whose requirements are less strict than the other big banks.

I would have thought that Unicaja would have appreciated my loyalty for over two decades, and accommodated me, but no, so “¡ADIÓS Unicaja!”.

With acknowledgements to SUR in English, Málaga