Roman city of Merida vs Medieval city of Caceres

Merida was our first taste of Extremadura in Western Spain, and a very different taste it was to what we had seen so far. Merida is a gold mine for anyone with an interest in Roman ruins, the city is filled with them every place you look, and they are still unearthing more all the time. The thing that is even more impressive is how some of the ruins are quite well preserved, even after nearly 2000 years.

Carmen and her Roman friend

Our favourite by far being the Roman theatre where they still hold open-air theatre shows, concerts and festivals in front of crowds of several hundred people. The theatre is still really impressive and pretty well preserved. It makes you wonder just how impressive it would have looked in its heyday, they even had drawings of how they thought it would have looked and was very impressive to try and imagine.

The Roman Theatre

Whilst there we also learnt some interesting information about the seating plans and how knights, roman citizens, women, slaves and foriegners, veterans and soldiers and owners and important people were seperated in the theatre, each having there own little section where they sat, the more important having the better seats, the women actually having the worst seats! This, however, was different to the ampitheatre, where there was not really this division. The amphitheatre was next door to the theatre and there we learnt about several of the different types of gladiators that used to fight there and some of their training techniques, it was really fascinating.

Carmen at the Amphitheatre

One of the other Roman ruins that we visited whilst in Merida included the hippodrome (circo) where the chariot races took place. This place is huge. The races involved a 5km race around the hippodrome and took about 10mins (much quicker than I previously imagined). However it is not so well preserved as the theatre and ampitheatre, and due to it not being very protected from the sun we didn't spend so long there, as the temperatures were quite high in the mid 30's.

We also saw the Roman aqueduct that carried the water from the nearby mountains to the city centre and the ruins of the Roman baths where the men used to do sports and train naked in a central courtyard.

Merida additionally has a Moorish Alcazaba, constructed over where a Roman wall of the city used to be when they conquered the city in the late 800's. From atop the walls of the Alcazaba you had some lovely views of the Roman bridge, which is in fact the longest Roman bridge in Spain.

The longest Roman bridge in Spain

Our final pieces of Roman architecture we saw in Merida were the Temple to Diana and the Arch of Trajan, the arch especially being in very good shape, although not artistically speaking especially interesting to look at.

Me with Temple to Diana

Caceres in comparison is very different to Merida. Instead of all the Roman ruins you have medieval buildings everywhere in the old centre. Literally everything within the old centre is medieval, all the buildings; towers, churches, museums, hotels, houses and shops have been made out of the old palaces and other buildings. What makes it even better is that people actually live there. 

One of the many medieval churches in Caceres old centre

We just strolled around the whole place and it felt like stepping back in time with the narrow winding cobblestone streets and the crests above the doors of each building, all the buildings jam packed next to each other. This was until a car would squeeze past you, just about managing not to scrap their wing mirrors off as they pass between the buildings and around the sharp corners. We expected knights on horseback to come charging past at any time.

The narrow cobblestone streets of Caceres

Whilst wandering we also came across the museum of Caceres and there we saw traditional dress from medieval times, and some of the artefacts that they had discovered within the old centre. We also visited the cistern, which was very small and went inside one of the palaces, which was also interesting, as inside it has been modernised.

Carmen in Caceres

The really nice thing about both Merida and Caceres was the lack of tourists, it was not overcrowded and you didn't have people jumping in front of you taking pictures everywhere, it was a nice change.

Carmen by the exit of the old centre in Caceres

One additional thing  I just had to add to this post although it is not in either Merida or Caceres is that on heading out of Caceres by bus we went through a town called Plasencia and saw a really beautiful cathedral, which I just had to show here as well!

Plasencia Cathedral

See us arrive in Salamanca in our next post!