forays in deep spain: mérida

It’s 5:30 a.m. on Monday morning and it’s cold.

I’m in Mérida again, connecting from Santiago de Compostela to Don Benito. Myself and a dozen or so other travelers are huddled by the vending machines, counting the minutes until the bus station opens, dreaming of the warm coffee we will hold between our hands.

I should be filling the empty hour with studying for my driving test (it’s on Friday, madre mía) but I can’t disconnect from my immediate surroundings, freezing as I am in Mérida. My mind tries to wander away, but the stiffness of my fingers and the drippy-ness of my nose keep pulling it rudely back to Mérida, 5:30 am, Monday morning.

What I wouldn’t do for a 24-hr Starbucks.

Since I am both mentally and physically stuck in Mérida for the immediate future, I shall indulge in blogging about this Roman city and the afternoon I spent here last Wednesday.

Mérida (a corruption of the Latin Augusta Emerita) was the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania, which stretched across Extremadura into Portugal (hence the etymology of the prefix “luso-, ” which in today’s language stands for all things Portuguese; i.e. lusophone = someone who speaks Portuguese). Its modern credentials are that it is the capital of Extremadura, but somehow that isn’t quite as impressive.

I arrived from sunny Don Benito to find Mérida shrouded in mist and mystery. Manolo, the security guard who gave me an oxidized coin and a tour of the sites (he was that bored) sighed that my photos would have been better on a clear day. I didn’t mind. It doesn’t take too much imagination to reconstruct Mérida of 25 BC in your head, but with the mist covering for the missing roads and chucks of wall, it would have been impossible not to.

The variety and conservation was impressive, but it was the sheer quantity of ruins that blew me away. I stepped out of the bus station and found myself face-to-face with the roman bridge, reflected perfectly in the still waters of the Guadiana. I crossed into what looked like the modern town. But here’s the thing: modern Mérida is only just larger than the ancient roman city. I was wandering distractedly along a Christmas-lit street when all of a sudden – BAM, ancient forum. Took a sideways glance in the shopping district – BAM, temple to Diana. BAM roman circus. BAM aqueduct. Bit ridiculous really – but in a marvelous way.

Manolo, my security guard friend, explained the impossibility of escaping Mérida’s Roman heritage. “You start digging the foundations for a house,” he told me, “And you end up with enough stuff to open a museum.” There are active digs all over the place – he showed me a half-buried pot behind the theatre, recently uncovered and waiting to be removed.

The highlight is, without doubt, the theatre and adjoining villas. The theatre is undeniably grand, and all the more wonderful for still being in use. The annual summer theatre fest sees the classics (of the Roman sort, with some Shakespeare tragedies thrown in for good measure) played out against the two-story, marble-pillar-ed, statue-adorned backdrop.

A trek past some funny-looking latrines, a wide well, and the amphitheatre took us to la casa del anfiteatro. The lucky folks who lived next door to the gladiators’ arena left behind colourful mosaics, the best-preserved of which is this gleeful grape-treading scene (the little naked dude on the ladder looks like he’s already had a goblet or two...)

And so I spent my afternoon in Mérida, combining Roman sightseeing with piping-hot roasted chestnuts, Christmas window-shopping, and a café cortado overlooking the river.

It’s 6:30 a.m. on Monday morning and it’s still cold – but the hour has been whiled away and the cafeteria looks like it may be opening.

I think I’ll be okay now.

More of Mérida here.