Extremadura to the heart of Spain
Instead of continuing south in Portugal and returning to Frankfurt via the Algarve and southern coast of Spain, we decided to cut through the middle of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, we entered the new-to-us region of Extremadura.
Coordinates
Extremadura’s distant past
Our first stop on re-entering Spain was in the pre-Roman era, when southern Iberia was influenced by Phoenician and Mediterranean contact, before Roman conquest. Cancho Roano near Zalamea de la Serena is named for the farm on which it was discovered in 1978. It’s a controversial Tartessian (late Bronze Age/ early Iron Age civilization with strong Phoenician influence) structure founded in the 6th C. BCE. Some think it was a palace/ elite residence, others a sanctuary; it lacks the domestic features of a typical settlement. The site was abandoned before 370 BCE after being intentionally sealed and burned—possibly in an act of ritualistic decommissioning.
The complex is surrounded by a moat with an entrance terrace between two towers facing the rising sun; the threshold is a decorated stela (ordinarily placed vertically) and the red clay courtyard includes a 5m deep well (📷1). The building was originally entered through a central hall, beneath which are remains of an even earlier structure (📷2). A round altar on the floor formed from clay and lime features a triangular element that kept a ceramic bowl, presumed to contain/ collect a sacred liquid (📷3). The central bulding is surrounded by a corridor and outer enclosure divided into 24 small rooms (📷4); both had stone foundations, clay floors, adobe brick walls with lime plaster and wooden roofs.
Roman Mérida
We stopped overnight in Medellín, with a castle, Roman theatre and birthplace of Hernán Cortés (who toppled the Aztec Empire enabling Spanish control of Mexico, reshaping the region’s culture, population and power structures through conquest, disease and colonization). In nearby Mérida the UNESCO-listed “Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida” preserves and protects the remains of the Roman colony of Augusta Emérita, founded in 25 BCE. It’s the most complete Roman urban ensemble in Spain and within Europe ranks among an exceptional few outside of Italy. We parked across the Guadiana River near the foot of Puente Romano, one of the longest surviving Roman bridges at 783m (📷1). At its other end, the Alcazaba | citadel is a 9th C. Islamic fortress built atop Roman works to suppress the revolting local population after the city’s capture by Muslim forces (who renamed it Mérida) in the early 8th C. Most amazing, a vestibule provided access to a double staircase descending to a cistern that was refilled from river water filtered through gravel at the base of a Roman dyke (📷2). Nearby is Palacio de la China | China Palace in Plaza de España, a 1928 department store built in Sevillian style (📷3); like many modern buildings in Mérida, it incorporates Roman remains in its substructure. The Templo de Diana | Temple of Diana is a Roman temple in the ancient forum area that was later incorporated into a noble residence, 15th–16th C. Palacio de los Corbos (📷4); this act likely contributed to the temple’s preservation.
Anfiteatro Romano | the Amphitheatre of Mérida was a gladiator arena opened in 8 BC, spanning ~64 by ~42 metres across and built partly from opus caementicium | concrete; the central pit was covered with a wooden floor during games watched by 20,000 people (📷1). Teatro Romano de Mérida | the Roman Theatre of Mérida is the city’s headline monument, built 16–15 BCE and still in use today for performance arts (📷2); in Roman times it also found use for town council meetings, electoral assemblies and posthumous tributes to important public figures. Nearby Casa del Anfiteatro | the Amphitheatre House includes rooms and corridors decorated with mosaics, such as this one depicting crushing of the grapes (📷3); note the juice collected in three vessels below the winepress. Circo romano | the Roman Circus was the city’s chariot-racing stadium, built in the 1st C. CE (📷4); one of the best preserved of its kind in the entire Roman world, it could entertain 30,000 spectators.
Museo Nacional de Arte Romano | National Museum of Roman Art houses artefacts from Augusta Emérita, such as this original 1st C. CE statue of Ceres, goddess of agriculture, from the scaenae frons | backdrop of the Theatre (📷1); the building itself is inspired by Roman brick arches. Casa del Mitreo is another elite residence, built in the late 1st C. outside of the city walls and featuring mosaics, but also notably retaining multiple residual frescoes, such as these two candelabra | candlestick holders (📷2); it was initially mistakenly identified as a temple dedicated to Mithras. The remnant core of Arco de Trajano | Trajan’s Arch stands 14m high (📷3); it was originally clad in marble panels. The smaller Visigothic collection of the National Museum of Roman Art is housed in a separate building, closer to the Alcazaba; among the works is this 7th C. pilaster, a decorative element in this case featuring the motif of Roman window bars (📷4). The Visigoths took control of Mérida in the early 6th C. and it remained an important political and religious centre in the Visigothic kingdom. Our 13km wander through history in 30° took 5.5h.
Cáceres
The walled Old Town of Cáceres is a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval ensembles, mixing Roman substructure (the 1st C. BCE colony of Norba Caesarina) with largely intact Islamic, Gothic and Renaissance architecture. On a Monday we found it largely deserted—even Plaza Mayor, the main square. A few tour groups did shuffle from ticket booth to ticket booth, but the homologous stone, populous pigeons and closed doors resisted our efforts to connect with this open-air museum, which seemed to lack residents to give it soul. In the late Gothic Santa Iglesia Concatedral de Santa María | Co-Cathedral of Santa María a spiral staircase (📷1) led to a small platform in the bell tower with views over the town (📷2); a number of other towers (including the 12th C. Moorish Torre de Bujaco) were in scaffold. We found the medieval streets and walls struggled to offer themselves as photographic subjects. An exception was at Palacio de Carvajal | Carvajal Palace, a 15th–16th century Renaissance-style palace, featuring a distinctive Gothic-style corner balcony beneath a pointed arch (📷3). We caught the bus back to camp feeling underwhelmed and questioning why this should be so. Camp itself is a highlight: we needed a break from travelling at pace, and what a delight to find an affordable pitch with en suite facilities (📷4)!
Monumento Natural Los Barruecos
We began at Museo Vostell-Malpartida, founded in 1976 near Malpartida de Cáceres; photography isn’t allowed inside, so we’ve nothing to share/ won’t attempt to describe the art. It’s within Monumento Natural Los Barruecos, given the museum’s buildings were part of a wool processing complex that created that reserve’s artificial ponds, formerly used for wool washing. The surrounding granitic landscape and the new wetland support colonies of Ciconia ciconia | the white stork (📷1); we also got fairly close at ground level (📷2). This hairy fellow is Isturgia famula, a moth native to southern Europe (📷3). This “bujío” is a traditional stone hut used by shepherds for protection from weather or as a temporary resting place (📷4); purportedly a common sight in pastoral landscapes where grazing was historically important.
Aside from storks we identified a variety of birds on the ground, in the water and overhead, including Aegypius monachus | the black vulture; Phalacrocorax carbo | the great cormorant; Hieraaetus pennatus | the booted eagle; Actitis hypoleucos | the common sandpiper; Anser anser | the greylag goose; Podiceps cristatus | the great crested grebe; Ardea cinerea | the grey heron; and Motacilla alba | the pied wagtail. It’s a biodiversity hotspot in an otherwise dry plain!
Charca de Barrueco de Arriba was the second pond we circumnavigated; info boards on the shoreline describe scenes from the “The Spoils of War” episode of Games of Thrones that was shot here (📷1). Safe from attack by fire-breathing dragons, the smaller-scale winged creatures we did see included this black and white beauty, Aporia crataegi | the black-veined white butterfly (📷2). A number of the granite formations have been named, such as Peña del Tiburón | Shark Rock, with natural erosion forming an eye and mouth (📷3); although we didn’t see any sharks in the pond, we did see Mauremys leprosa | the Mediterranean turtle. On the blue trail there are examples of petroglyphs from the Bronze Age, but all we made out was a caged rock. We could see only grass and granite at the site marked as a late Roman village. The “anthropomorphic tombs” were an easier spot, although there was no information on site regarding their age or occupants (📷4); possibly early medieval? Our route blended the green, red and blue trails, covering 8km in under 3h.
Monfragüe National Park
We celebrated Earth Day (as we all should) getting our dose of greens and blues in Parque Nacional de Monfragüe | Monfragüe National Park at the heart of the UNESCO Monfragüe Biosphere Reserve. This park in the Extremadura region is renowned for its birdlife and we had hardly begun our first trail when this small and familiar Fringilla coelebs | chaffinch sang us a fine tune (📷1); you can hear it below. The birds got rapidly bigger and soon we heard the whoosh of air through the flight feathers of Gyps fulvus | the griffin vulture (📷2). The park is also known for its landscapes, including rocky crags, scrubland, rivers and oak woodlands called dehesas in Spain—the montado in Portugal (📷3); this variety supports biodiversity. Gum rockrose were everywhere and on many of the bright white flowers beetles fulfilled a messy pollinator role; meet Heliotaurus ruficollis (📷4).
We saw lots of butterflies in Monfragüe National Park—always a healthy sign—including Zerynthia rumina | the Spanish festoon, widespread across Spain (📷1) and Maniola jurtina | the meadow brown, which has a wider range (📷2). We began our second trail by crossing one of the bridges over the Río Tajo (📷3), a natural river by origin but reshaped by human activity including dam building. It was from a lookout of said river (Salto del Gitano) that we caught sight of our first Ciconia nigra | the black stork, recently arrived from sub-Saharan Africa and part of a European migratory population that come to breed here (📷4).
Also at Salto del Gitano we spied—thanks to the line of bird scopes and lenses pointed at it—Monticola solitarius | the blue rock thrush, who appeared to be commenting on the attention being received (📷1). The geology at Salto del Gitano is noteworthy too; the near-vertical quartzite strata of Peña Falcón on the opposite bank shelters one of the most important griffon vulture colonies in Europe (📷2). We continued the trail to the hilltop Hermitage and Castle of Monfragüe, just closing as we arrived—but the free views of the landscape were worth the climb (📷3). As we got back to the van we were overflown by Milvus migrans | the black kite (📷4), a consolation prize for not having seen Aquila adalberti | the Spanish imperial eagle.
Villareal de San Carlos to La Tajadilla, out-and-back was 9km and took a little over 3h. Our Fuente del Francés via Salto del Gitano and the castle return loop was 8km/ 3h.
Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha)
The historic centre of Toledo in Castilla-La Mancha (the plains around which are the stomping grounds of fictional character Don Quixote, first penned in 1605 CE) is a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site. Situated on a hill above the Río Tajo | Tagus River, the old town’s skyline is dominated by the Alcázar—a fortress with layers of Roman, Moorish and Spanish history, now a military museum (📷1); seen here from Mirador del Valle. Toledo’s listing in part reflects a long history of coexistence between Jewish, Muslim and Christian cultures—thus, references to the “city of three cultures”. In the Judería | Jewish Quarter we visited Sinagoga del Tránsito (1357–1391), converted to a church in 1492 and a museum of Jewish history since 1910 (📷2). There were queues to see the Moorish interior of Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca; also in the vicinity is the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, known for its ornate cloisters (but we were feeling out-cloistered by now!). Instead we saw a Moorish exterior, at the former Mosque of Cristo de la Luz (999–1186), said to be one of the best-preserved Islamic structures in the city, despite conversion into a chapel (📷3). Catedral Primada Metropolitana de Santa María de la Asunción, the city’s 13th C. Gothic cathedral features an elaborate interior, including ornate carved “misericords” into which monks would lean backwards in order to remain technically standing during long services (📷4).
Toledo’s UNESCO listing also reflects its concentration of monuments from different periods (Roman, Visigothic, Islamic, Gothic and Renaissance), as well as its roles as a former capital of Spain and an intellectual centre in medieval Europe. Puente de Alcántara is a bridge across the Río Tajo of Roman origin, although the current structure is largely medieval (📷1). Puerta del Sol | the Sun Gate was built by the Knights Hospitaller, a Catholic military order, in the late 13th to early 14th C. and combines Romanesque with Islamic styles (📷2). Both landmarks—the bridge and the gate—seem to typify Toledo’s architectural layer cake, in which the constructs of different periods are superimposed to create something not fully one thing nor the other. As a whole, the intact old town serves as a poignant reminder of the heritage lost to “strategic” bombing during WWII elsewhere in Europe (there was some damage during the Spanish Civil War). While wandering the old town this street corner made us think of the approach to the Treasury in Petra (📷3); even the more modern buildings are commonly sympathetic in style (📷4).
Aranjuez (Madrid)
Palacio Real de Aranjuez | the Royal Palace of Aranjuez is a UNESCO-listed component of the broader Aranjuez Cultural Landscape; this former royal residence lies ~50km south of Madrid. The palace was begun in 1561 CE by Philip II as a seasonal hunting lodge, with two subsequent wings enclosing a parade ground. To our eye the façade looks as if it had been commissioned under a restricted budget (📷1). Entry to the palace gardens is free. As Jardín del Parterre | the Parterre Garden has been demolished pending restoration, that left Jardín de la Isla | the Island Garden, a neglected-looking park consisting almost entirely of trees and hedges; note its fountains are on a timetable (📷2). A ticket buys internal access for a self-guided tour through some of the key royal apartments, the decoration of which largely reflects a mid-19th C. refurbishment under Isabella II. The Arab Study was our favourite, reminiscent of the Alhambra—indeed, it was designed by the man who restored that palace (📷3). Many rooms contained dark paintings with impaling scenes or female wardrobe malfunctions, perhaps gifting the royals some curious dreams. A bright exception was the garish Porcelain Room, a Rococo-style addition in 1763–65 which must have induced many a migraine since (📷4).
Continuing or eastward journey, we exited Extremadura to enter another new-to-us region: Aragón.
#2026 #camperVan #castillaLaMancha #europe #extremadura #hiking #madrid #nationalPark #nature #nomad #roadTrip #romans #spain #travel #unesco #vanLife
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