Mérida, Spain, Thursday November 27th

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Mérida was all that we could have wished for. A lovely compact town with numerous Roman sites, all in easy walking distance.

Emerita Augusta was the name for one of the three Roman provinces in Spain and Roman Mérida grew to become a very important city and a centre for Roman administration. Later the Swabians (an immigrant group from southern Germany) and then the Visigoths held power, and in the eighth century, the Arabs came. In 1230 it was conquered by Alfonso IX, and was later allied to the Catholic monarchs, Isabel and Ferdinand. Austrian Bourbons ruled, involving Mérida in wars with Portugal, which is only a day’s ride away. The French, claiming to assist the Spanish against Portugal, stayed and took over Spain for a brief period. Mérida is now the capital of autonomous Extremadura, this region of Spain. It was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993.

We crossed the street from our hotel to look at the Church of Santa Eulalia, but stopped first at a roadside chapel.Several people were kneeling and praying to a statue of Saint Eulalia, a young Christian martyred by burning at the hands of the Romans. As we watched, there was never a moment that one or two people were not there. One man and his wife lit a candle and passed it in through the bars of the grille protecting the statue, and then they started to unwrap a bunch of flowers that they had brought. They managed to squeeze it through and toss it onto the others that lay at the saint’s feet. The patron saint of Mérida, Saint Eulalia was obviously very sacred and special in the lives of these people.A door at the back of the church led to an information centre and then down into the archaeological finds under the church. In 1990 some renovations had led to a little bit of digging, and then to full investigation of what lay under the church. They were wanting to find out if there was any verification of the traditional information that St Eulalia was buried under the church, as well as to learn about the history of the site in general. In fact, they did find the grave, and consider that part of the remains can be regarded as genuine relics of the martyr.

The site of the church had been occupied by Roman houses for nearly the first three centuries AD. These gave way to a Christian necropolis from the fourth century, where the grave believed to be St Eulalia’s was found. A mausoleum to St Eulalia was built on the site and then a basilica was built, with the walls of its sanctuary around the mausoleum foundations. In 875 the Moslems forced the Christians to leave, and the church fell into decay, but was not forgotten. The present church was built from 1230, after the city’s Christian reconquest.

It was quite amazing walking around under the church, seeing how the current pillars had their bases on piles of rubble from ages past. Eulalia’s grave was a lit up hole some way from the end of the walk way. We realised that this city was taking its heritage very seriously.

Below: It was strange to be below the church in the excavated area, catching occasional views of the church above, but we were actually unable to visit the church itself.

A quick dip into the tourist office and we were off with a map on a ‘pub crawl’ of Roman sites. First was the Temple of Diana, misnamed by a local historian in the 17^th Century, but the name has stuck. The Count of Los Corbos had built his palace at one end of it, utilising part of it for his apartments, as one would do if there was a handy bit of ancient temple on hand.Actually, that incorporation is believed to have ensured the temple’s survival in such good repair to the present. The temple was devoted to the imperial cult, which worshipped Augustus as a deified emperor. Originally the temple would have been an important building in a much larger forum area, and we were to see part of the portico of the forum area up the street a little way. Meanwhile, Keith was taking photos of one of Diana’s four cats, a lovely light brown creature which was trying to catch some sun on the ancient stones.A family of Americans was following their guide more efficiently than us and immediately recognised the two sacred ponds that we were wondering about, at the same time working out that their young daughter’s coughing attack was just ‘a pull’. I presume that meant that she was faking it, possibly having seen that she had five more monuments ahead of her in the next two hours.

There were two forums in Mérida; the one here which would have been surrounded with municipal buildings and another one with buildings dealing with provincial matters. The portico we saw was a reconstruction based on archaeological evidence. Copies of some statues that would have been there are now in place. In a time without newspapers and a town far from Rome, it would have been important to have a way for people to have been familiar with the faces of their rulers and gods.We knew that the Romans had laid the town out in a neat grid pattern, but as we followed the narrow, one way streets, all with curves so that you can’t see very far, and all intersecting at odd angles, we thought the original town planners would have been turning in their graves.We had to watch the time, because this is definitely the land of the siesta. Everything closed from about two o’clock and while most things opened again at 4 o’clock, some stayed shut for another hour. Our multi-site ticket was clicked by a girl with Downs Syndrome, and we stepped inside the fence and walked to the amphitheatre. Over our three days in Mérida, we were to see disabled people carrying out many tourist related jobs.

The amphitheatre was enormous and was opened, along with the theatre, in 8 BC, as a sign that this place was really important as the colony of Augusta Emerita; the new capital of the Lusitania Province. Popular entertainments included gladiatorial battles, fights between animals and fights between animals and men. Circuses were also crowd grabbers. These kinds of activities were frowned upon after Christianity became the official religion and eventually the amphitheatre was not used any more. Sections of it became buried and the part that was visible provided an excellent source of stone for other building projects over the centuries.The theatre was a much more refined venue, and has been largely reconstructed since 1963, when Menendez-Pidal took on the task. It is now the venue for annual classical theatrical events, which would be marvellous to see. Seating was originally related to social status, but these days no doubt riffraff can buy their way into the front row.There was an area dedicated to the cult of Augustus to one side behind the stage, as well as formal gardens. Further over we were able to see the excavation of a house, with some areas of murals and wall decoration still intact. We marvelled at the mosaic floors, so much like patchwork quilts in their designs.

A whistle was being blown to tell us that it was siesta time, and everyone was being chased out. We had bought some bread, and had plenty for a picnic back at the hotel. While not raining, this was not ‘sitting out’ weather unless you had no choice. I had not been feeling very well, with headaches and a sore throat, so I took the idea of siesta literally and hopped into bed. Keith wasn’t reading for long before he too succumbed. When we woke, I had no energy and decided to stay in the room and relax. I had been cheered by the earnest woman in the tourist office who had told us that we didn’t need to visit all the sites in one day, and that our ticket would last ‘forever’. Keith went off to the library where he was able to use the internet to look up information about potential couchsurfing hosts. He had a look at the many arches of the Roman bridge before he returned in the dark. It was cheese and salad picnic on the menu again.

The restored seating in the theatre looked like stone from a distance, but up close looked like fibreglass!

Probably politically incorrect these days in any language