Mérida

The capital of the region Extremadura lies roughly halfway from Seville to Jerte Valley therefore it was an obvious lunch break stop for us. Apart from the attraction of the possibility of food for two hungry travellers the town has other attractions as well, namely the amazing collection of Roman monuments. In fact, Mérida boasts of the most Roman monuments in Spain. Founded in 25BC by Augustus meant that it needed to provide a good range of ‘bread and entertainment’ for its habitants. We spent a few hours here (strictly AFTER having lunch) to sample some of these well-preserved ancient remnants.

In some ways Mérida is similar to Rome. You just walk along the street, minding your own business, turn around a corner and BANG there’s a huge Roman monument right in front of you. This is how we came across the Temple of Diana.

It is a pretty strange sight as it seems that every big nation who ruled these lands added something to it. The foundations were of course laid by the Romans themselves and the   Corinthian columns stand tall and straight like sentinels of the era. Later came the Muslims in the 8-9^th century and added a few typical arches on the back of the building. Finally in the 16^th century some other dude called the Duke of Córbos decided to turn the whole thing into his palace. Even though it’s a real mixture of styles it still has an air of profound beauty about it.

After the majestic building of the Temple we moved on to the ‘real deal’, the Roman Theatre and the Amphitheatre. First we visited the latter. The place is huge but it gives you an idea of the popularity of the gladiator fights in those times. I knew they were a favoured past time but never quite thought that they built arenas that can hold this many people!

If you follow the ‘recommended route’ (they call it ‘recommended’ but in truth you’re not allowed to go anywhere else) you will find many descriptions that will educate you about life in the time of the Romans. There is a whole section about the different types of gladiators.

Right next to it there's the Roman Theatre which is the most incredible and well-preserved Roman monument I have ever had the luck to see. Let's face it you need a great deal of imagination to fill the rows with Romans wearing their white togas and discussing philosophy and politics but once you do this you will again and again admire the genius of the architects of that time.

The place is huge and you are free to walk around and touch everything around you. We were joking with Paul that if this was in the UK we would probably never be able to experience it the same way. It was simply incredible.

Every year the Festival of the Classical Theatre is held here where you just sit around these stone seats and enjoy classical plays performed under the marble columns. I hope on day we can see this, too, must be an amazing experience. You can read more about that here.

Finally we went to see the Circus Maximus. On the way we came across some other ruins with a stork nest on top. Let’s make use of the available space, shall we?

The Circus Maximus of Mérida is one of the best preserved within the Roman empire, apparently. Unfortunately we arrived during the time of siesta (damn these Spanish and their siesta) therefore we could only have a look from the side. To tell you the truth I don’t think we missed out on a lot as the place itself is a big flat grassy area.

This more than 400m long Roman hippodrome could hold up to 30 000 spectators. Again, you need your imagination here to imagine those Romans riding their horse carriages around. We saw however a photo of the area during the Semana Santa. If I had a chance to experience Easter in Spain again, after Seville this would definitely be my second choice to see it. I mean just look at this!

Finally, the Roman Bridge.

To tell you the truth Mérida itself did not impress us that much however if you have the slightest interest in history and the Romans you will definitely enjoy walking around here.

Garganta de los Infiernos – Los pilones

Apart from admiring the cherry blossoming we had another reason to go to the Jerte Valley and that is to do some walking in the surrounding hills. Unfortunately due to the wet weather we had only one day for it and for this we chose the best route the valley has to offer, the Los Pilones.

The Garganta de los Infiernos (which translates to ‘gorge of hell’ or something equally dramatic) is a gorgeous natural park on the north side of the valley close to the village of Jerte. As the Los Pilones is the most well-known hiking route it is usually very busy but we managed to avoid the crowd by getting up early.

The route is not long, can be done in an hour or so and is very, very pretty. It leads you through a green forest where the smooth, moss covered rocks look like green velvet and gives you great views over the valley. There were snow-covered mountain tops, waterfalls and the sound of the river accompanied us all the way. Even the sun came out for a few minutes.

Then we arrived to the river. It is a strange sight as during the process of river erosion the water carved out holes and pools on its way down out of the rock. These natural pools are perfect to have a dip in during the hot summer months.

The route of the Los Pilones finishes here however it is part of a long, 7hour circuit route so we opted for continuing on the path for a little longer. We didn’t have time to do the whole route but turned back after about half an hour and found our way back to the information centre.

There are many lovely routes and guided walks in the area. If you are interested you can find more information here (Spanish).

A wedding in El Torno

As part of the Cherry Blossom Fiesta amongst the many activities offered was one that raised my curiosity: they enacted a typical Extremaduran wedding in the village of El Torno. Even though it was raining all day there were still many tourists around to see the event and we joined the crowd to be part of the event.

El Torno is a little village in the Jerte Valley nestled on the side of a hill at 900m. It has the advantage of offering incredible views over the whole valley and it was surrounded by the white flowers of the blooming cherries. AND it has a stork nest right on top of its Town Hall. Now that’s something to boast about!

We walked through the market and browsed through the local products.

Then we went to the main square where in a huge tent we tried three different types of the typical wedding pastries. The smiling ladies who served us were wearing traditional outfits. They got all excited when they realised that we are foreigners. The cakey things they pushed into our hands were the bañuelo, the Rosa de San Miguel (the one with the weird shape) and a piece of sponge cake. We also got a cup of coffee to wash them all down with. Sweet!

Meanwhile out on the street the ‘happy couple’ and their parents were having a great party walking around the village and stopping at every square to give a good old traditional boogie. The music was provided by a small brass band.

The whole entourage ended up in the tent. From here on it was complete chaos in true Spanish style. Everybody was shouting, people were dancing and laughing. The audience ushered the whole wedding bunch up on the stage, the poor band was commanded to play without stopping and the ‘happy couple’ had to dance until they couldn’t move. From time to time the crowd loudly demanded a kiss from the participants and cheered happily when it finally happened.

We watched all this from the side and found it extremely entertaining! Here’s a little video of the dance.

Up until now they were dancing around with the wedding cake with some flowers in the middle. Suddenly somebody on the stage turned around and threw the whole thing into the crowd! No, not only the flowers, the cake as well! It ended up on the floor but was swiftly picked up (well within the limits of the ‘3 second rule’) and everybody got a piece of it pushed into their hands. This is how we ended up trying it, too.

On our way out I stopped at the Information table to enquire about the rest of the activities. At the table tree little girls were sitting. I meekly asked them to give me the information sheet. One of the girls pushed a sheet of paper in my hand and together with the other one then started to explain things to me in very fast Spanish – both of them at the same time! Meanwhile the smallest one in the middle was just standing there staring at me with her mouth open. By the time they finally stopped talking my head was spinning and I did what all the foreigners seem to master very quickly here: smiled politely and nodded in timed intervals. Then the girls asked the question which seemed to be their main interest, where am I from? They had a list of all the regions of Spain which I obviously didn’t fit into. Under the list they wrote with giant letters for everybody to see: HUNGRíA. They were so happy to know that we were foreigners that I told them that my husband is from England. They were chuffed to write INGLATERRA under Hungary’s name. Now it was official: we were the only foreigners there that day.

What an experience!