Day 25: Northwest to Mérida

Long day of travelling today. We chilled out in our apartment for the morning, doing a little more work. Shandos grabbed us some breakfast from a different nearby bakery to yesterday, and Schnitzel got a short walk.

Set off from our apartment around midday, and this time had no difficulty navigating out of town. Slightly annoyed that our car had been in an underground carpark for two days, I paid 35 euros before loading up and exiting, only to have the boomgate automatically lift up as we approached! Could've saved ourselves $50 if we'd known - alas.

We were heading northwest towards the small city of Merida, where a huge complex of Roman ruins awaited us. But first, a 4 hour drive. The first couple of hours passed very quickly on the freeway back to Cordoba, but after this we were on second-rate country roads. Filled up with fuel and snacks, and eventually stopped for lunch at 2pm at a random hotel and restaurant that appeared in the middle of nowhere. Decent tapas too - had some fried chorizo, french fries, and croquettes which are surprisingly common here.

Arrived in Merida around 5pm which was a bit of an issue since our Airbnb hosts were on a weekend away and wouldn't be back until 8:30pm (we were aware of this when we booked). Since some of the Roman ruins were unfenced and unticketed, we took advantage of the last couple of hours' sunlight to check out the enormous aqueduct which stands about 25 metres high.

It's in the middle of a large park as well where we let Schnitzel off his leash and charge around like a maniac. Seems like his favourite place in Spain so far! Stopped for a drink in one of the only restaurants open (basically everything in Spain shuts on Sundays), and visited an ancient Roman temple which was once the centre of town.

Since we're here for a few nights we headed for the supermarket to stock up on a few groceries, only to discover that all of the supermarkets were closed too! Aldi, Carrefour, Mercadona, Lidl - all shut! Crazy. This is a town of 60,000 people after all! By now it was 7:30 and quite chilly, and I was getting quite cold in just shorts and thongs (it had been fairly hot in Ubeda!).

So we took the option of last resort: dinner at McDonalds. Originally we intended to eat in the car, but Schnitzel seemed pretty comfortable so we left him in his bed and ate inside. Tick-tock, 8:15. We drove back to the apartment and waited out the last 10 minutes in the car before our host turned up to let us in. Nice apartment, very large with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms though the living area isn't enormous. And we've got a parking space in the basement for the car which is great.

We unpacked, relaxed for a bit and then headed to bed, ready for another day of sight-seeing tomorrow.Read more