On the Ruta Again Towards Cáceres - Aldea del Cano

We left Mérida on a sunny windless morning on the next leg of our journey towards Salamanca. It will take us a number of stages and overnights in different towns, both large and small to get there. Our Ruta de La Plato book has legs of 80 km between places but that is too much for us, though we have on past trips, had to do on occasion, 100 km due to unexpected lack of accommodation in a closer destination. So we are breaking it into smaller distances, all of course dependent on a place to overnight. The idea is to enjoy the ride, not endure it! Our destination after Mérida was the small village of Aldea del Cano, simply as a way stop, before arriving in the larger city of Cácares where we will stay for 3 nights as there is much to see there.

We rode past the Los Milagros Aquaduct leaving town.

It was good to be out in the countryside again, following a cycle path and then onto a very quiet rural road. It took us by the big Embalse de Proserpina, the reservoir, still with its Roman dam at one end, which was served by the Los Milagros Aquaduct. It looks like it would be a pretty active recreational spot in the summer for swimming and boating with little restaurants on the shore.

We saw few people or cars - mainly livestock in the dehesa again - the cork oak meadows and pastures with their old stone walls. Our path looked temporarily blocked by this intimidating animal that was actually a cow not a bull, and after looking at us curiously, simply ambled off to one side of the road. All friends here!

Then the fog moved in and it got quite atmospheric.

We saw our first road sign for Cárceres. We hopefully stopped in the little village of Aljucén in search of a mid-morning coffee, but no cafes were open. We chatted with two Camino walkers in the main square, really the first ones we have encountered though there is a lot of Camino signage now. They too had been looking for coffee after leaving Mérida that morning. They would have left very early in the morning to meet up with us in that village. They had stayed in the little albergue or hostel that we had seen when walking along the river in Mérida. One guy, Sven was from Stockholm and the other guy David, was - yup, small world - from Victoria, in fact graduated from Oak Bay High in 77.

We eventually stopped along the still empty road for a picnic lunch. The road was like one wide empty cycle path between Mérida and Aldea del Cano. At one point, the olive groves extended right to the horizon. The fog had now lifted, the sun was out and it was just a peaceful, bucolic cycle all the way to Aldea del Cano and the little Casa Rural we had booked for the night.

Casa Rurals in Spain are country houses which may include the whole building or a room. It is like a bed and breakfast, though not always with breakfast. They are located up in more remote areas where there are no or few hotels and other businesses. Often they are not on Bookings.com or Airbnb and mostly cater to Spanish travellers. This would maybe be our 3rd experience with Casa Rurals in the two years we have cycled in Spain, but we actually did find them all on Bookings.com.

To be able to break up the length of our cycle to Cáceres was important and we felt lucky to have found Casa Rural Via de La Plata but weren’t sure what to expect. It turned out to be a very basic but nice old house right on the village’s main square, the town hall at one end and the old church with its resident storks at the other.

The owner, Theresa, lived in a separate part of the house. She directed us to put our bikes in the walled yard behind the house, showed us up a flight of stone stairs to a nice room with a little balcony overlooking the square with an en suite bathroom. All the basic mod cons were there - heat pump in the room and wifi. At €66, it was comparatively expensive for what it was but we were very grateful to have it.

She asked if we wanted breakfast in the morning - it was €3 each - and told us it would be available in the little kitchen, and in the dining room we could use the toaster and just turn the coffee maker on. For dinner, options were limited to one restaurant that would open at the usual late hour. After settling in, we opted to go for a drink two doors down to the little bar on the square that would close at 4. There was Theresa having a drink with the locals. It was an amazing place inside with curved brick ceilings. The owner brought us a little plate of stew with bread with drinks and we were quite happy to have the rest of our picnic lunch later, after walking around the very quiet little village. Yes, more stork photos.

Certainly more basic than much of our accommodation, the Casa Rural was clean, warm, quiet with a very comfortable bed. We both slept well, and collected our breakfast downstairs to have in the little dining room. The only issue was a Camino walker from the UK had checked in later in the evening but was up earlier and beat us to the coffee. We could not find another filter but there was ground coffee so we made another pot, drank most of it, then he came back in looking for more. Now it was his problemo!

We didn’t see our host in the morning, just left the key in the house after moving our bikes out of the courtyard. On to Cáceres!

Our day - 44 km. Elevation - 486m.