It really feels like a Friday today. If I were 3 feet tall and male you could call me Grumpy. This is probably the last Photo Friday that I am going to focus on Spain for a while. I’m getting too homesick! Here is a looong photo essay. (I think next week I will also go back to single photo posting!)

Cáceres Plaza – Old buildings and cafés

On our way to the Roman city of Mérida, we stopped off for a post-lunch stroll through the city of Cáceres, the second largest city of Extremadura. Cáceres has a really well preserved city center that is all medieval. It’s another UNESCO World Heritage site. Choosing to visit while everyone was enjoying their siesta was a brilliant idea. Although it was hot, the streets were all ours!

Another view of the same plaza

Empty café – it was siesta time after all. This is where I want to be right now.

This is the kind of building I think of when I think of Spanish buildings

Not the KKK – Nazarenos or Capuchinos (as DH calls them)
celebrating Semana Santa

I love the contrast of the old buildings and the blue sky

Deserted streets and more contrast

Arched doorway to… another door

More contrast – this time green, blue & stone

Many buildings had shields on their facades

Yup, this will do for me! Sold!

Cáceres is a really lovely city and it warrants much more than an hour walk through the center. Someday we’ll go back. This post is part of Photo Friday, featuring travel photos. See more at Delicious Baby.

I just can’t get enough of Spain, so I am featuring it again this week on Photo Friday! There were also way too many photos to choose just one, so you get a little photo essay.

Roman Theater circa 18 BC

They say the sun never set on the Roman empire and one could certainly say the same for the Spanish empire. These two once great empires collide in Extremadura, the rough and tumble province of Western Spain. The conquistadors of the new world came from this place, where over a millennium earlier Agrippa built a theater in the city then known as Emerita Augusta. Agrippa and the conquistadors are long gone, but the theater still stands, or most of it anyway. It is the best preserved example of Roman architecture in the world. Next door is an amphitheater where gladiators and exotic animals met their end.

Arched entrance to the amphitheater

Spain is a place where the old and new live side by side. In Mérida, the Mithraeum, a temple used by the Romans for bull sacrifice, sits just down the street from the bull ring, where the age old battle of man versus beast plays out for a modern crowd.

The amphitheater is still used today – for concerts

When we visited Mérida in late August they were celebrating a fiesta. In the late afternoon, the narrow city streets filled with people participating in another ancient custom still thriving in Spain – imbibing merrily with a group of friends. While in many Spanish cities the practice of drinking in the street, the so-called botellón, has been outlawed, the citizens of Mérida, young and old alike, seemed to have no problem with it. The DH and I loved the jovial atmosphere. (Botellón describes the custom of people, usually teens/youngsters, gathering in a park, plaza or the street to drink {alcohol generally}, eat and gab. There is serious debate about botellón in Spain as some view it as a serious nuisance due to noise, mess and juvenile delinquency, while others view it as harmless.)

Remains of an aqueduct (and fuzzy trash bin – I took this from the car)

Beyond the bacchanalia, Mérida is a cornucopia of Roman delights – theater, amphitheater, mithraeum, circus maximus, aqueducts, arched bridge (the longest of all Roman bridges and still in use), triumphal arch, temple of Diana, etc… No wonder the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This post is part of Photo Friday featuring travel photos. Visit Delicious Baby for more! Come back next week for more from Extremadura, the city of Cáceres.