Boog's Blog

A nice day! Temperature has dropped by 10 degrees F. Both of us much more comfortable. Even a bit cool leaving the hotel.

Route to the Via along a highway and then a nice wide path. Overall a good walk except a bit too much traffic on the first bit. Hilly in the beginning, then flat, and then more hilly as we head towards the exit of Extremedura over the next few days. Reminds us of the Meseta.

QB much improved. Walked all day and did not scream out loud even once. In pain, sure, but what is life without some pain? Always keeping in mind the medieval pilgrims, those that survived, had to walk back.

Asked the server at the Parador if he was a government employee. Said, sadly not, as they have it much better.

The farm house turned out to be a two hundred year old cow barn converted to semi-modern status. Comfortable. Outside of town by too much to go back into town late a night in the dark for dinner. Stopped in town at a supermarket, Dia, and got far too much but remains will work for tomorrow’s walk. Tonight smoked salmon, kumato tomatoes, fruit, yogurt, bread and a spinach torta.

The town is on the Euro cheese circuit, or so it claims. Lots of cheese places as we pass through town.

Casar de Caseras is a small town very spread out. Nothing in town except a good sports center (swimming pool etc.) and a few “cafeterias”. The church, however, is well endowed with stork nests.

Last day in this medieval city. A rest day for sure as QB tendon not healed as yet. Was able to upgrade hotel to a far better one (originally booked in an Albergue without food) for our stay in Casar de Caseres on Thursday.

From yesterday at the museum

A rather large installation

Insane walking around the town today. Game of Thrones everywhere walking even access to the cathedral

Several fine dishes for dinner

Ah, the heat has returned.

QB limping and in a lot of pain. Tendon on right foot aggravated by walking and walking and hills and medieval cobbles. Hopefully some rest, Aleve and another day here will help.

Fab shower here at the Parador. A good Parador with the usual roaming corridors. Breakfast good but very few if any are Spanish. The tourists like us enjoy the large buffet. Fresh orange juice, Sevilla, available, good and inexpensive. Yeah, though not really good for those watching their sugar intake.

Navigation hard today as the Game of Thrones people took many of the street name plaques down. Medieval city hard enough with street names; without…..

Tower of Bujaco. 12 th century Arab fortification with interpretive center. Roman, Visigoths, then Arabs. Good slots for arrows. Overlooks Plaza Mayor.

Museo Caceres. Excellent regional archeological and history museum. Good signage. Caves with very early handprints etc. Maltravieso Cave. Also intricate jewelry from 5th century and so much more including the cistern below.

Fabulous Arab cistern. Main reason I wanted to go to this museum but it turned out that not only is the cistern wonderful the exhibits were as well.

Contemporary art museum with some very good and interesting pieces asked if we had a reservation and we said no, so they took my name, wrote it on a piece of paper, entered it into the computer and then let us in free. Guess that was the reservation.

Foggy morning, we decided to take a bus to avoid a long schlep on the same boring road and end up late and tired in Caceres, the second largest city in Extremadura. The bus, Alsa, local bus as Spain has no national buses, cost less than $4 for the both of us.

Caseras an extremely hilly, steep streeted, city of just shy of 100K persons.

When we checked in, the hotel reception explained that Caceres is the third, yes third, most preserved medieval city in Europe. The Tourist Information guide books also point this out. (Prague and a city in Estonia have first and second). Third is really really impressive. Would take a week to see all the places highly recommended.

Food, just cannot get it between 4pm and 8pm. Completely unlike the North. Even the question, in decent Spanish, confused the person in the tourist office. Restaurants are called Taparias or Tapas places but are not, just restaurants, same hours, with a few additional dishes.

Game of Thrones being filmed here, at least in part. Given a map of areas Molestas. One near the major cathedral and as we wandered over a worker was carrying a dragon head; he covered it quickly when I tried to take a picture.

View of Plaza Mayor obstructed by catering tent. Old wall looks good

For a more general overview (not Boog particular) open Google and enter “caceres spain images.”

Site-seeing: cathedral of Santa Maria. Polychrome black jesus to contrast with the black madonna in the Le Puy en Velay cathedral in France.

Santiago church closed. Wanted to pay respects to Jimmy.

On the way to the old Jewish quarter we found a very interesting house from the Arab 12th century. Granddaughter of the person who excavated it was the tour guide inside. Includes the original thermal heating and hammam.

It is in the old Jewish area from which the Jews were expelled in the 15 century

Walked through San Antonio Barrio, the ancient Jewish Quarter. St. Anthony’s church was apparently built on top of a synagogue, but still reminds me of synagogues I’ve seen.

BSVDLP Alcuescar to Aldea de Cano

Accommodations:

Hotels with star ratings

Hostals with star ratings

Casa Rural maybe with ratings

Albergue generally only reviews

Refugios generally volunteer staging

Tonight: Casa Rural. Dinner was home cooking Very different menu and very good. Homemade chicken noodle soup, homemade gazpacho, meatballs in Sofrito, chicken roasted with vegetables. Side dish of garbanzo beans and spinach in Chorizo sauce

Awakened last night by loud thunder and lightning. Kill the power in our electronic devices.

Early morning departure to beautiful sunrise. Not much on the path until we got to a place about 3 km from where we’re staying where there was a picnic bench

In northern Spain a Bar about every 5 km in this area we’re lucky to find one within 15 km

Much cooler today 64° at noon

Caceras tomorrow. Big city

BSVLP Aljucen to Alcuescar

A lovely early morning start. Got to see a great sunrise as we walked along through the park. Unfortunately the park ended.

After that miles and miles and miles of sandy, rocky, bug infested, hot Road, a road that continued to climb up almost the whole day. And these are the good attributes of today’s Road.

Nothing of note on the road today; nothing, nada. Saw one other pilgrim.

Finally reached our one star hostel. Clean with a sagging bed.

We opted for a romantic roman style hot tub (what they call hot here I call tepid) after a long but relatively easy walk. They have attempted to re-create a roman spa. I think there is even a show this evening but well past pilgrims bedtimes.

Another empty rural town. Next stop even more of nothing. Countryside is pretty. Three dinner choices here: go to the bar whenever you want, wait until 8 pm and get standard dinner, wait until 9:30 pm and get romantic roman dinner. The latter time is too late for us.

BSVDLP. Merida 3

Final day in this fine city. Planned as rest day as there was to be sooooo much to see. And there is.

A couple of observations from yesterday:

-The Roman (gladiator) theater had speed bumps for the carriages, even B.C.E. Signage explained.

-Merida is not a level city. Hardly any streets are other than mildly steep.

-For those who have been: contrast the Circus after having seen the horse race ring in Sienna

Two panorama videos of the gladiator area and the Circus:

Open youtube and search for

“Sharon dickson oct 13 2021”

Aqueduct Romana last planned site.

Correos to send box of excess stuff to Bobby. Wanted to include a pig but box too small.

Stork actually in one of the many nests we are seeing daily

Ordered vino tinto at the bar, our welcome drink delayed. Will add this one to our list of good choices.

We will be enjoying our merienda in the hotel room : Gazpacho,cuajada, Camembert, tortas de aceite and fruit.

A bit later we will enjoy a light dinner.

BSVDLP Merida 2

After a lovely night in the Parador we went touristing.

First the promised Roman Amphitheater and Roman Theatre. Quite expensive to get in and worth every euro.

The Amphitheater was for the gladiators. Theatre for public plays and lectures

Six pics follow First three the amphitheater and second three public theatre

The second three the public theatre.

Somewhat renovated and still in use V

Roman Circus pictures:

Video. https://youtu.be/71dzKlwVpiQ

A good explanation

Small aqueduct

BSVDLP Almendralejoto Merida

Mérida, the capital of western Spain’s Extremadura region, was founded by the Romans in the 1st century B.C. Remains of the ancient city include the still-used Teatro Romano, which has a double tier of columns rising onstage. The ancient Puente Romano, a 792m bridge spanning the Río Guadiana, adjoins the Alcazaba, a 9th-century Islamic fortress built over Roman walls. – Google

Great town and interesting walk in on good walking conditions.

Roma people on the path. About a dozen sleeping rough on mattresses, cooking fires on the path, with children running wild and continually asking, pushing, for money. First time we have seen this.

Falcon club. Four men with falcons and one live, soon not to be, rabbit. On the side of the road.

Nice discussion with Nuria, the young German girl, about life in Eastern Germany. She grew up in Munich but moved to the east. Among the usual and expected differences (as we saw on our bike trip through the DDR) is job hunting. In the West they are instructed how to do a job interview. Not so in the East.

Met two interesting men who retired early (late 50’s) to Valencia. Easy process, low cost, great medical and dental at low cost. Decided to live the good life. Significant ex-pat community but hard to integrate with locals who are insular. Biden dealt a very hard hand, great to be rid of Trump, agree with some of Biden but are more left leaning. Mentioned one can change residency to South Dakota with a one night stay in a motel and a receipt from same. Shades of the Paradise papers.

Much of Merida is well covered by Wikipedia and Google images so little will follow.

-Roman Bridge, 762 meters long – yes that long

Alcazaba, Arabic fortress built on Roman villa that was then a Visigoth defense.

Arc of Triumph. Trajan

Temple of Dianna

Left the highlight attraction, the Roman Amphitheater for tomorrow. Just snuck in a pic from outside the gate.