Day 13 In Zafra

We stayed two nights in this Parador. We wanted to explore two towns north of here. This is an area that tourists normally don’t come to and there are some Roman Ruins that are some of the finest in the world.

The town with the ruins is Merida. It was established by the Romans in about 30BC. It was on the crossroads of two major trading routes. One road is from Madrid to Lisbon and the other from Leon to Seville. The Romans built a great city that later went to ruin when the Moors took over. It never achieved greatness again. It was not until early in the 20^th century that restoration began. The entire city sits on Roman ruins. We walked to several of them. We saw the Theater, the amphitheater, a long Roman bridge and an aqueduct. Right in the middle of downtown they are restoring the Temple to Diana. It must be a huge jigsaw puzzle played with big cranes as they dig out and reassemble all the pieces.

The second town is one of the nicest ones we have seen. It is a small town called Trujillo. The old town is on top of a hill and the old buildings have been maintained as they were without the addition of any new buildings. We started up the narrow roads not knowing if we could get though. We found a place to put the car on the side of a hill and started walking and taking photos. Eventually we found the main square and had a late lunch there.

This whole area is one of my favorites. I really like the wide open spaces. It reminds me of  Arizona and most of the west. The towns are far apart with open range between. The towns here however are mostly located on the top of hills with a castle and a large church surrounded by old stone buildings.