Mérida, Spain
Trip Report: Slices of Portugal & Extremadura Spain
Driving and stuff
It is now Monday, May 7, four days after we landed in Lisbon. It was time to move on. The next phase of our vacation was something completely different. My first dose of ancient ruins was in 2000 when we were the tour guides for a group of 14 customers plus some wives on a factory tour trip to various places in France. At the tail end of that, I added 5 days in Catalonia for the two of us to decompress. While that trip is a story unto itself, it lit our passion for ruins, as we saw the Roman amphitheater in Tarragona and visited the Roman and Greek ruins at Empúries and the Iberian village of Ullastret. I later read that Mérida was the crown jewel of Roman ruins in Iberia but when we visited Andalusia 13 years ago, I just couldn’t fit Mérida in and it had tantalized me ever since. Successive generations had fashioned a new town amongst the 1 CE ruins, leaving prime bits for archaeologists to play with. A theatre, an amphitheatre, a temple etc etc with the modern city sprawled around it. It was also in the heart of Extremadura, which proved to be a particularly beautiful part of Western Spain.
When I searched for house rental accommodations in Mérida, one listing rose to the top. A farm house just a couple of kilometres south of town. While this would mean a degree of self-catering, we were excited to NOT stay in a city or town and that became the theme for the rest of our bookings. I assumed that we would spend some days driving to hill towns for lunch, visiting castles and cathedrals but that’s not what ended up happening . . .
We left the rental car garage at Lisbon airport in our new steed: a manual diesel silver Fiat Tipo station wagon. A nice car to drive. I called it my Ferrari Lite. It was an Aeroplan points rental and they bumped me up from a Focus. Seconds after leaving the car garage at the airport, I made a wrong turn and I was dumped into a seething 4 lane round-a-bout. Duplicate this about 200 or 300 times and you have the story of the next two weeks. I forgot my trusty TomTom. The custom Rasta voice has guided me for over 15 years in many countries – even the Namibian desert - but I had left him sitting on my desk at home. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Yeah, I was not pleased with myself over this one. Car agency GPS rentals are obscene prices. But I did have Apple maps and Google maps on our active iPhone 6 with unlimited Roaming Data. I tried it in Lisbon and it worked. But it just didn’t work well enough . . .
First off, it was slow. At many decision points, she (yes, it was a female voice so I am not being completely sexist here) would tell you which road to take only after you had already taken the wrong one. By the time the GPS had recalculated where you were now, you were barrelling down a one-way narrow street lined with cars and no place for a kilometre or two to pull over or turn around. Or she would tell you to continue on (insert unintelligible poorly pronounced Portuguese street name here) for 800 metres and at the round-a-bout turn onto (insert unintelligible poorly pronounced Portuguese street name here). When you got to the round-a-bout, there were no names on the signs that bore any resemblance to (insert unintelligible poorly pronounced Portuguese street name here). And bear in mind that there is always a fast white van immediately behind you in Portugal. He can appear out of nowhere at any time but he especially shows up when you are at your tensest. Certainly a candidate for the Demon of Hell Award of 2018 in my estimation. Fast Audis, Peugeots and Benzes all seemed calmer, but the Portuguese White Van driver was particularly crazed. I promise that I won’t go on and on throughout my report but just assume that this was happening in the background every minute of every day that we were in the car.
When I searched for house rental accommodations in Mérida, one listing rose to the top. A farm house just a couple of kilometres south of town. While this would mean a degree of self-catering, we were excited to NOT stay in a city or town and that became the theme for the rest of our bookings. I assumed that we would spend some days driving to hill towns for lunch, visiting castles and cathedrals but that’s not what ended up happening . . .
We left the rental car garage at Lisbon airport in our new steed: a manual diesel silver Fiat Tipo station wagon. A nice car to drive. I called it my Ferrari Lite. It was an Aeroplan points rental and they bumped me up from a Focus. Seconds after leaving the car garage at the airport, I made a wrong turn and I was dumped into a seething 4 lane round-a-bout. Duplicate this about 200 or 300 times and you have the story of the next two weeks. I forgot my trusty TomTom. The custom Rasta voice has guided me for over 15 years in many countries – even the Namibian desert - but I had left him sitting on my desk at home. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Yeah, I was not pleased with myself over this one. Car agency GPS rentals are obscene prices. But I did have Apple maps and Google maps on our active iPhone 6 with unlimited Roaming Data. I tried it in Lisbon and it worked. But it just didn’t work well enough . . .
First off, it was slow. At many decision points, she (yes, it was a female voice so I am not being completely sexist here) would tell you which road to take only after you had already taken the wrong one. By the time the GPS had recalculated where you were now, you were barrelling down a one-way narrow street lined with cars and no place for a kilometre or two to pull over or turn around. Or she would tell you to continue on (insert unintelligible poorly pronounced Portuguese street name here) for 800 metres and at the round-a-bout turn onto (insert unintelligible poorly pronounced Portuguese street name here). When you got to the round-a-bout, there were no names on the signs that bore any resemblance to (insert unintelligible poorly pronounced Portuguese street name here). And bear in mind that there is always a fast white van immediately behind you in Portugal. He can appear out of nowhere at any time but he especially shows up when you are at your tensest. Certainly a candidate for the Demon of Hell Award of 2018 in my estimation. Fast Audis, Peugeots and Benzes all seemed calmer, but the Portuguese White Van driver was particularly crazed. I promise that I won’t go on and on throughout my report but just assume that this was happening in the background every minute of every day that we were in the car.
To the farm
Once we finally got on A1 heading north, the sun broke out and birds starting chirping . . . well . . . excuse my imagery, but things got better. With relief, we merged onto the incredible Vasco da Gama Bridge over the Tagus and the traffic dwindled. All went well until many kilometers later, we turned off the lightly trafficked tollway to see the megalithic sites west of Évora. I know that I promised not to talk about driving too much, so let’s just say that our phone GPS had a 1 hour hissy fit and decided that we needed to see lots of cork trees and sleepy villages. Finally giving up, I calmly got back on the A6 (A5 after the Badajoz bypass) for the pleasant drive all the way to Mérida. We passed numerous hill towns in the distance with castles topping almost every one. Really beautiful picturesque scenery. This was the Spain I had come back to see.
We beelined for a supermarket (Mercadona) in the suburbs of Mérida, which of course meant that we had to drive right by it on a raised roadway with no exits. So across the river and into Mérida we went but a couple of quick correct guesses got us back to the right parking lot. Hungry and without lunch in the now mid-afternoon, we were in need. While I feel slightly ashamed, a Burger King sat in front of us so we filled the immediate void with fries and onion rings. Just as a data point, a Whopper with fries was a crazy 8.65 € or something similar! The menu above the counter was in Spanish with English names as well, but the completely indifferent young staff all appeared to have never read them.
Shopping in a real supermarket was, well, just like home. A 1€ coin deposit gets you a cart. We were shopping for basics and a couple of meals. We had to see the farmhouse and assess its cooking capabilities before we got too carried away. The meat aisle and the milk section required a lot of careful attention. For the latter, much of southern Europe has moved to UHT milk, the kind we first encountered in South Africa that doesn’t require refrigeration having gone through a super-heating process that kills bacteria and arguably changes the taste/texture ever so slightly. In Spain and Portugal usage is over 90%. We had to hunt to find the small choice of traditional refrigerated milk.
Meat was also a bit of a challenge since the cuts were somewhat different but we figured it out. As a bonus, a section of the meat aisle was devoted to a butcher with 3 grades of jamón available for slicing. Yeah, now you’re talking. We got some bellota to go. Mission accomplished, it was off to our home for the next 4 nights.
As per email, we met our host in a roadside gas station parking lot so he could lead us to the farm. Under the freeway and past the waste-wood-fired generating station and down a pretty pitiful dirt road. You know, the kind that you have to weave and drive on both sides to avoid the craters? When we turned into the long farm lane, it got worse. But then we drove through the gate and pulled in beside our host on the lawn between the small trees and saw this:
We beelined for a supermarket (Mercadona) in the suburbs of Mérida, which of course meant that we had to drive right by it on a raised roadway with no exits. So across the river and into Mérida we went but a couple of quick correct guesses got us back to the right parking lot. Hungry and without lunch in the now mid-afternoon, we were in need. While I feel slightly ashamed, a Burger King sat in front of us so we filled the immediate void with fries and onion rings. Just as a data point, a Whopper with fries was a crazy 8.65 € or something similar! The menu above the counter was in Spanish with English names as well, but the completely indifferent young staff all appeared to have never read them.
Shopping in a real supermarket was, well, just like home. A 1€ coin deposit gets you a cart. We were shopping for basics and a couple of meals. We had to see the farmhouse and assess its cooking capabilities before we got too carried away. The meat aisle and the milk section required a lot of careful attention. For the latter, much of southern Europe has moved to UHT milk, the kind we first encountered in South Africa that doesn’t require refrigeration having gone through a super-heating process that kills bacteria and arguably changes the taste/texture ever so slightly. In Spain and Portugal usage is over 90%. We had to hunt to find the small choice of traditional refrigerated milk.
Meat was also a bit of a challenge since the cuts were somewhat different but we figured it out. As a bonus, a section of the meat aisle was devoted to a butcher with 3 grades of jamón available for slicing. Yeah, now you’re talking. We got some bellota to go. Mission accomplished, it was off to our home for the next 4 nights.
As per email, we met our host in a roadside gas station parking lot so he could lead us to the farm. Under the freeway and past the waste-wood-fired generating station and down a pretty pitiful dirt road. You know, the kind that you have to weave and drive on both sides to avoid the craters? When we turned into the long farm lane, it got worse. But then we drove through the gate and pulled in beside our host on the lawn between the small trees and saw this:
Francisco, who goes by the diminutive Churro showed us around his property. It was actually 1/3 of a hacienda triplex with 3 complete houses facing different directions but abutting each other. The front one was completely separated by hedging and this belonged to someone else. Churro owned the other 2. One he rented out that faced west and his own weekend getaway that faced north. The large yard - which topped a hill - also sported a common swimming pool which was shut until June. Both houses had big patios and they were both very private – even from each other. The land sloped out to the west and north with an assortment of out buildings that housed Curro’s menagerie. Let’s see if I can remember them all: 4 dogs, 4 cats, a herd of cattle, 5 pigs, lots of chickens and chicks, roosters, guinea hens, ducks, several types of geese, sheep, goats, pheasants, peacocks, a cage with budgies and canaries, rabbits, and even a partridge in a cage with a sparrow. He invited us to roam at will as long as we remembered to shut the gates. He owned at least 100 acres but I never could really get the real figure. As an FYI, don’t necessarily believe home rental listings that claim the owners speak English. Sometimes their English is like our Spanish and Portuguese: compliments of Google Translate. That was Churro.
We loved it. On the main floor, the house had a typical rural kitchen with near-new appliances, wifi, a bathroom with shower, a dining area and a living room with a fireplace. Upstairs were 2 bedrooms – one with a toilet – that overlooked the lower front half of the house. It instantly felt like home. Very, very comfortable. It also had an outdoor wood barbeque with lots of wood and kindling.
And the view from the property? Miles and miles of olives and vines, with Mérida basking in the background.
We loved it. On the main floor, the house had a typical rural kitchen with near-new appliances, wifi, a bathroom with shower, a dining area and a living room with a fireplace. Upstairs were 2 bedrooms – one with a toilet – that overlooked the lower front half of the house. It instantly felt like home. Very, very comfortable. It also had an outdoor wood barbeque with lots of wood and kindling.
And the view from the property? Miles and miles of olives and vines, with Mérida basking in the background.
So what did we do for 3 full days on our farm? Well, let’s just say that we got pretty lazy.
The first day, all we could manage was a trip to the supermarket in town. Even our less than hectic pace in Lisbon and our subsequent taste of the bad navigating capabilities of an iDevice in the Portuguese wilds had taken its toll and we both agreed to a veg day. We are getting older and I certainly feel my decrepitude daily, even as I shake my fist at it. We read, we napped and we harassed the sheep and goats a bit trying to get photos. For dinner, I overcooked some chorizo on the barbeque but we had enough wine that it didn’t matter. A really low motion day. The farm was exactly what we hoped for. No noise except for the roosters, the partridge, the pheasants etc. (OK, there was the occasional truck backup beep from the power plant way off in the distance on the other side of the horse farm on the next hill).
The weather was only partly co-operative. It was fairly cold at night, dipping into single digits too many times with a seemingly relentless wind in the evenings, so we may have come a bit too early in May or maybe the weather was just a couple of weeks late. The days warmed up to low 70s and proved quite pleasant. On the insect front, ants did attack a pop can carelessly left on the counter in the kitchen overnight but the main door had a strip door curtain which did great for flying things. Mosquitoes (which hadn’t arrived yet) might be another story. And fyi, the dogs had fleas. Lots of them.
Over the next couple of days we braved the road out to shop and explore. We drove into old Mérida and parked the car in a large lot near the Alcazaba and walked the town. Our first task was to mail a letter that had to get out. We found the post office (walking through the Arch of Trajan on the way) but it had just relocated a few days before, as we were told by a college student who happened by. She tried to explain where they were now but gave up and told us that she would take us there. As we walked through the streets, she (Caroline) said that she was on the way to school and English was one of her language courses, so we were a good opportunity to try it out in real life. We were really grateful to her because we never would have found it on our own. A nice random stranger strikes again!
After that, we easily found the entrance to the Roman archaeological area with only a slight detour into a jamón shop lower on the street. There was no line up for tickets and in fact, only a small number of tour groups in evidence throughout the whole site. Since school was still in swing, there was the usual excited contingent of back-packed school kids on an outing but they are somehow never distracting. I wish I could have visited sites like this when I was a kid. Anyways, I had timed this visit well. And I got to add another theater and amphitheater to my list.
We lunched in the small park area overlooking the ruins with sandwiches that we brought with us. In fact, for the rest of the trip, we just brought fresh bun sandwiches. Jamón, salami etc. Too many times, in desperation, we have either gone without lunch or settled for the closest place available and ended up being disappointed with the results. We have had successes of course, the delicious arancini that we discovered in a piazza in Siracusa springs to mind but we have had far more failures when I didn’t plan a place beforehand. Having Google in your hand is changing this but who wants to stare at their phone for the whole holiday? Everybody it would seem . . . (insert frowny face emoji here).
We easily wandered the streets of Mérida, seeing the Diana Temple along the way, and picking up some Spanish bellota and olive oil while aiming for our car near the river. Since we were parked right beside it, we visited the Alcazaba and then wondered why we had bothered.
The next day, we drove north of town into the countryside aiming for the Dolmen de Lácara. It’s about 1 km off the highway, down a walking lane lined with wildflowers alive with bees. A really nice easy walk although I imagine that it might be cruel in the summer. So, I finally got to see and be amazed by a Dolmen – a megalithic burial monument. I am not sure of its age but if you guessed over 5000 years, you wouldn't be wrong. There is something magical about reaching that far back into prehistory. This was our 3rd attempt over the years to see one in Iberia and the first success. As an added bonus, we had the place all to ourselves. Beautiful.
On the way back through town, a stop at the local Carrefour mall got a screw in my glasses tightened for free. Gracias. But we found out that the delicious-looking store with all of the hams hanging in the window only sold complete pieces of jamón. Boo.
Speaking of glasses . . . we were out walking in the pasture amongst the grass and flowers and B decided she wanted me to take a picture of her sitting in a big patch of purple wildflowers. Twenty minutes later, she realized that her glasses were gone and she had taken them off for that picture. Yes, she had taken them off and just set them somewhere in the middle of a field. So we went back to that field and walked it. Nothing. We walked some more. Nothing. She was giving up, when I suggested that she get the camera so we could possibly pinpoint the spot from the photo. While she was gone, my grid search method paid off and I found them. Certainly a proverbial needle in a haystack, though. The moral of this story: Don’t set your $700 glasses down in a field. Not ever. And . . . small miracles do happen.
Other than that, the farm was our idyllic haven. We grilled some wonderful local lamb chops on the outdoor grill one night. Some ausages on another. All washed down with a wine bargain I found in the supermarket. A Valdepeñas Gran Reserva for less than 3€ each! I bought enough to last for our home dinners for the whole trip.
Anyways, we really, really enjoyed Curro’s farm. As a suburbs dweller, even a short burst of a farm is good for the soul.
The first day, all we could manage was a trip to the supermarket in town. Even our less than hectic pace in Lisbon and our subsequent taste of the bad navigating capabilities of an iDevice in the Portuguese wilds had taken its toll and we both agreed to a veg day. We are getting older and I certainly feel my decrepitude daily, even as I shake my fist at it. We read, we napped and we harassed the sheep and goats a bit trying to get photos. For dinner, I overcooked some chorizo on the barbeque but we had enough wine that it didn’t matter. A really low motion day. The farm was exactly what we hoped for. No noise except for the roosters, the partridge, the pheasants etc. (OK, there was the occasional truck backup beep from the power plant way off in the distance on the other side of the horse farm on the next hill).
The weather was only partly co-operative. It was fairly cold at night, dipping into single digits too many times with a seemingly relentless wind in the evenings, so we may have come a bit too early in May or maybe the weather was just a couple of weeks late. The days warmed up to low 70s and proved quite pleasant. On the insect front, ants did attack a pop can carelessly left on the counter in the kitchen overnight but the main door had a strip door curtain which did great for flying things. Mosquitoes (which hadn’t arrived yet) might be another story. And fyi, the dogs had fleas. Lots of them.
Over the next couple of days we braved the road out to shop and explore. We drove into old Mérida and parked the car in a large lot near the Alcazaba and walked the town. Our first task was to mail a letter that had to get out. We found the post office (walking through the Arch of Trajan on the way) but it had just relocated a few days before, as we were told by a college student who happened by. She tried to explain where they were now but gave up and told us that she would take us there. As we walked through the streets, she (Caroline) said that she was on the way to school and English was one of her language courses, so we were a good opportunity to try it out in real life. We were really grateful to her because we never would have found it on our own. A nice random stranger strikes again!
After that, we easily found the entrance to the Roman archaeological area with only a slight detour into a jamón shop lower on the street. There was no line up for tickets and in fact, only a small number of tour groups in evidence throughout the whole site. Since school was still in swing, there was the usual excited contingent of back-packed school kids on an outing but they are somehow never distracting. I wish I could have visited sites like this when I was a kid. Anyways, I had timed this visit well. And I got to add another theater and amphitheater to my list.
We lunched in the small park area overlooking the ruins with sandwiches that we brought with us. In fact, for the rest of the trip, we just brought fresh bun sandwiches. Jamón, salami etc. Too many times, in desperation, we have either gone without lunch or settled for the closest place available and ended up being disappointed with the results. We have had successes of course, the delicious arancini that we discovered in a piazza in Siracusa springs to mind but we have had far more failures when I didn’t plan a place beforehand. Having Google in your hand is changing this but who wants to stare at their phone for the whole holiday? Everybody it would seem . . . (insert frowny face emoji here).
We easily wandered the streets of Mérida, seeing the Diana Temple along the way, and picking up some Spanish bellota and olive oil while aiming for our car near the river. Since we were parked right beside it, we visited the Alcazaba and then wondered why we had bothered.
The next day, we drove north of town into the countryside aiming for the Dolmen de Lácara. It’s about 1 km off the highway, down a walking lane lined with wildflowers alive with bees. A really nice easy walk although I imagine that it might be cruel in the summer. So, I finally got to see and be amazed by a Dolmen – a megalithic burial monument. I am not sure of its age but if you guessed over 5000 years, you wouldn't be wrong. There is something magical about reaching that far back into prehistory. This was our 3rd attempt over the years to see one in Iberia and the first success. As an added bonus, we had the place all to ourselves. Beautiful.
On the way back through town, a stop at the local Carrefour mall got a screw in my glasses tightened for free. Gracias. But we found out that the delicious-looking store with all of the hams hanging in the window only sold complete pieces of jamón. Boo.
Speaking of glasses . . . we were out walking in the pasture amongst the grass and flowers and B decided she wanted me to take a picture of her sitting in a big patch of purple wildflowers. Twenty minutes later, she realized that her glasses were gone and she had taken them off for that picture. Yes, she had taken them off and just set them somewhere in the middle of a field. So we went back to that field and walked it. Nothing. We walked some more. Nothing. She was giving up, when I suggested that she get the camera so we could possibly pinpoint the spot from the photo. While she was gone, my grid search method paid off and I found them. Certainly a proverbial needle in a haystack, though. The moral of this story: Don’t set your $700 glasses down in a field. Not ever. And . . . small miracles do happen.
Other than that, the farm was our idyllic haven. We grilled some wonderful local lamb chops on the outdoor grill one night. Some ausages on another. All washed down with a wine bargain I found in the supermarket. A Valdepeñas Gran Reserva for less than 3€ each! I bought enough to last for our home dinners for the whole trip.
Anyways, we really, really enjoyed Curro’s farm. As a suburbs dweller, even a short burst of a farm is good for the soul.
Emerita Augusta and the farm
Next up: Marvão