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.

the pilgrimage

Santiago de Compostela is made more beautiful by rain. The Christmas lights strung between arcaded buildings catch the mist, disperse, glow. The narrow streets in the old town glisten. Green moss grows in the details of the Cathedral façade.

My journey was not along the Camino de Santiago, the route through France and Northern Spain taken by pilgrims since the Middle Ages. An 11-hour bus ride took me from Mérida in Extremadura, north through Castilla-Leon, and west into Galícia, where I wound overnight through Verin, Ourense, Vigo and Pontevedra before arriving in Santiago on Thursday morning. I did not share the pilgrims' path, but I did share their destination: the Cathedral of Saint James the Apostle.

There is something so stunning about the jumble of styles, the immensity of the building, its crown of five (five!) bell towers. I lost myself happily in the wiggles on the gate, the dissymmetry of the façade, the tiers and tiers of columns. Just inside is the Pórtico de Gloria, the original west front, which now stands inside the main doors of the cathedral. In the center stands a sculpted column where pilgrims offer a prayer of thanks with their hand pressed into the roots of the tree under the saint. The five deep finger prints, worn into the solid marble, are a testament to the millions who have ended their pilgrimage this way.

Beyond the Cathedral, Santiago is a charming city, small, but designed for good living. R and I happened upon a neat photography exhibition by chance, and on Saturday, when we turned up for tickets at Teatro Principal, all 4oo seats were sold -- it warms my heart to think of full theatres and any city that has them wins my admiration. This region is famous for its silversmiths and I am taking away a beautiful ring set with a the black stone azabache (a gift to myself) and red-coral earrings (a gift from F and R). The old city is entirely pedestrianized and is crammed with hot-chocolate cafés, basement bars and tiny restaurants, which are turned crammed with gallegos and on this holiday weekend, tourists.

Galician cuisine is somewhat legendary itself, comprising a mind-boggling array of sea critters and things in shells. The dish I had heard the most stories about was the pulpo, or octopus, served in olive oil and sprinkled with grainy salt and paprika. It's hard to pick a favourite between the fried calamari, grilled prawns, tuna empanada, the shrimp and mushroom revuelto -- but at gunpoint I'd pick the vieira a horno, that yummy thing sitting so prettily in the scallop shell, the symbol of St James. And I'd have to spare a word for the dense bread -- sigh -- a far cry from the fluffy, white, easily dried out thing that abounds in Don Benito.
I heartily recommend a visit to this corner of the Iberian Peninsula (although you are unlikely to have hosts as generous and hospitable as mine... :) ). It is so different from the image Spain uses to sell itself to tourists -- bulls, flamenco and ole ole -- and for that reason so much more worth visiting. The home of the Iberian celts is a magic land of rolling hills, legends, bagpipes, witches and omens....
...and I return to Extremadura completely under its spell.

In the tiny bars that fill Santiago's old city, coins glint from the walls. I make a wish and jam my own penny into a crevice at Casa das Cruchas...

More photos here.