More Mérida

I will try and summarize our additional Mérida explorations. There was a lot to see in this city of about 65,000.

We walked along the Guadiana River promenade from the old Roman bridge down to the Los Milagros (The Miraculous One) Aquaduct. More than 800 m of this Roman Aquaduct still stand in a grassy park - no ticket needed. It has 3 rows of brick and granite arches that rise up 27m. It was constructed by the Romans to bring water into the city from thr Proserpina Dam or Albuera Reservoir, which we actually cycled beside when we left the city. This granite and red brick structure was built during the 1st C AD and fell into disrepair after the fall of the Roman Empire. What remains are 38 arched pillars standing 25 m high.

Very impressive indeed. Again, we were happy that all the info boards were also in English. The diagram below is an illustration of how the Romans - well, probably their slaves - used these wooden pincers to move stones into place and you can still see the holes drilled into the stones for this purpose.

We did use our tickets to visit the Temple of Diana, though most of it can be seen from the outside, and the informational displays inside were not in English. It was part of the main public forum of the Roman city, Emerita Augustus. The Temple of Diana is apparently an incorrect name for it. It is actually the Temple of Mars, dedicated to the imperial cult. There would have been a garden with a water feature and you can see the remains of 16h C private palace for the Duke of Corbos that was later built into it.

Also part of the Augusta Emerita Municipal Forum, built during the 1st C is the Pórtico del Foro, with 3 huge Corinthian columns supporting a massive piece of marble depicting the heads of Medusa and Jupiter on two medallians and there is a large section of wall behind with statues of Roman gods and rulers. No ticket needed, just viewed from the street. You can see the unfortunate ugly building behind it.

On our ticket, we also visited the quite small Basilica of Santa Eulalia, apparently the first Christian temple erected in Hispanic after Emperor Constantine. Built outside the walls of the ancient city, it is was originally built in the fourth century, on the site where Santa Eulalia was burned and martyred, for what I don’t know but it didn’t take much to be condemned. It is the only fully medieval building located in Mérida. It has a lovely coffered ceiling and some of its vaults, capitals and columns, scome from the Visigothic temple.

The main attraction here though is the crypt underneath the church. Excavations carried out in the basement of the Basilica since 1990 have revealed the remains of Roman dwellings and a Christian necropolis. Any remains would seem have all been moved to museums and what you see are spaces where the burials were and the giant round columns of the church descending into the ground below. Not that interesting really and the church was filled with way too many bleeding Jesuses on the cross for my liking. Not sure the Christians, compared to the Romans, have any moral high ground to stand on.

The last big site we visited was the Alcazaba, the oldest Muslim fortification on the Iberian peninsula, built in the 9th C., just above the Roman bridge. It was a bastion to control the city and access in and out of it. The walls flank the river with views in both directions and the towers overlook the bridge. It was interesting to see that besides the Roman bridge, now pedestrian only, there were two other major bridges on either side leading in and out of the city. And we can’t seem to get beyond the George Massey tunnel

One of the most interesting remaining features is the underground cistern of water that you can still access via a double set of stone stairs that descend underground towards the river to where there is a large stone cistern of water that still flows in from the river. Ingenious! There were some beautiful reused pilasters of Visigoth design incorporated into the structure.

Within the Alcazaba are structures from other periods, a 15th-16th C convent, as well as preserved Roman roads and the foundations of a large house with its thermal baths, etc. Those Romans knew how to build - and keep clean The site also contains some very old olive trees and miscellaneous columns and capitals.

Mérida also has a National Museum of Roman Art that we would like to have toured but it was temporarily closed and no one seemed to know why or for how long. But you could dress like a Roman by visiting this store.

Mérida is a pretty compact place and we enjoyed walking through the streets to the various Roman sites and along the river promenades. The Plaza d’ España is a really lovely elevated square surrounded by interesting buildings and with a beautiful fountain in the centre. It has a little open air bar in each corner and we spent several hours on Saturday evening sitting in one of them as the sun when down, just watching the flow of Méridians in and out of the square, doing what the Spanish do so well, socializing. We did not hear anyone speak English the entire time we were in Mérida which makes me think of something Bill Bryson wrote in one of his books about when travelling, the relief in not having to take in other people’s conversations. There is something to that!

Here are some general street scenes.

Being Valentine’s Day and Jim’s birthday, we had another stroll along the river, this time on the island in the middle, and a nice late lunch, a very good Menu del Dia. Lovely melon salad, stuffed eggplant and Jim had solomillo - pork tenderloin - with a nice sauce and very good potatoes, not fries. With bread, coffee and dessert - €17 each and that is more than you would normally need to spend.

When we have an apartment, we buy our own food mostly and here was something I had not noticed before - wine in tetra packs like soup! You can see how cheap it is. I bought a very good bottle of while wine while we were in Mérida for 3€ and our long sit in the main square - 2 beers and 2 glasses of wine with free snacks - was 9€! And they never seem to charge more for premium terrace seating in cafes the way they do in Paris. And tipping is not expected. Prices in Spain do not seem to have changed from last year - very very reasonable.

I was happy to see this opera poster pasted over a bullfighting poster. Would love to see this.

It was lovely and warm while we were in Mérida - cool in the morning but up to 24c in the afternoon, and the warmest nights we have had. The Ruta de La Plata was a recommended route for spring or fall but moving further north on our route has not been an issue as we thought it might. No frost or snow as yet! Absolutely ideal cycling or sightseeing temperatures. Would be unbearably hot in the early summer to early fall. We have now been cycling for a month after leaving Tarifa. And on we go…..

Our days in Mérida - mucho mucho walking!