Sunday September 28, 2014

Up and away before first light today.  It was beginning to get light as we left the campsite at 8:15 am.   Our lights were on as we headed for the N630 one of the Spanish National routes that parallels the highway.  I think we saw more road cyclists today than we saw cars.

It was a lovely ride, rolling hills with a few little climbs, just to test the legs.  We both felt really good and we seemed to be going really quickly, we finished a 73 km ride in just over 4 hours.  We passed two castles that were located within 100 metres of each other.

There is a route that is being promoted in Spain called the Ruta La Plata.  It is primarily a route for mountain bikers, but is well signed.  It criss-crosses the highway, N630 and the Camino de Santiago.  It could be a really nice ride, if we weren’t fully loaded.  We stuck to the N630 all the way to Merida, which was a great route.

We didn\’t know what these road signs meant, so we asked at the Albergue, she told us that it meant it was the traditional road that cattle take. Nothing to do with Canada being a cow!

On the outskirts of Merida we followed the signs for Avenida La Plata, which took us by a Roman aqueduct that had storks nests on the top of each arch.  Almost every nest had a stork in it, clattering their large beaks and displaying their wings.

Occasionally they would take-off and fly a circuit around the aqueduct and land back on their nest.

We arrived in Merida at just after 12:30 and found the Albergue really quickly.  However, it was closed with a note on the door with a telephone number.  As we do not have an update on the phone yet, we couldn’t call the number.  We decided to find the Oficini de Tourismo and ask them to call the number for us.  We went into the main square and asked for directions, but we were hungry so we had a coffee and some tapas (croquettes). The placemat had a map of the Town on it, and I was looking for the Tourist Office on it.  Ralf said \”OMG, we are now planning our route with the help of a placemat\”.

We headed up to the tourist office, with the help of the placemat map and discovered it was closed until 5:00pm.  However, a Spanish lady started to speak to Ralf in rapid Spanish asking him if he was a pilgrim and needed the Albergue and trying to give him directions.  Ralf had that \’deer in head-lights look\’ and tried to explain we knew where the Albergue was but couldn’t call them because we had no phone.  Her husband came along, told us again where the Albergue was, then got the idea that we knew where it was but couldn’t call.  He took the phone number from us, called the number and asked when they opened and if they had space for us with bicycles. Yes, not a problem, it opened at 5:00pm.  How nice is that, people help us all the time.

We had a few hours to kill so we wandered around the Town.  While we were having lunch we noticed a few people wandering around in Roman attire, Togas etc.  We didn’t know that this Town was a Roman Town and has many Roman archaeological sites.  The major site – the ampitheatre and theatre – had a E15 per person entry fee (too much for our budget), but most of the other sites you could view for free.  We also didn’t know that this week-end was “Dress like a Roman week-end”.  If we had known we would have bought a couple of white bed sheets and wandered around the Town in togas.

Whenever we stopped to investigate a site, we were asked a lot of questions about our ride.  One fella indicated that due to our trip I had very large thighs and was very impressed with them.  His wife dragged him away shortly after that.

We met a really nice couple from Mississauga who were here for two weeks on vacation and really enjoying Spain.  As we passed one restaurant, a group wished us Bon Camino, then noticed Ralf’s Canadian flag and asked where we were from.  The two fellas were walking the Camino and their wives were in the support vehicle, they were from Victoria, BC.  Ralf is going to keep a count of how many people we meet that are from Canada (6 today).

We didn’t have any provisions for dinner and weren’t sure if the Albergue had a kitchen.  We decided to eat in a restaurant and had the menu el dia (menu of the day).  Starter, main course, dessert, bread and a drink for E10.60 each.  We had a nice meal and then headed to the Albergue.

There is one room with 8 bunk beds in it and two showers.  The albergue is located in an old mill on the side of the river.  The City decided to restore this building and maintain it is an albergue.  A lovely historic building.

Of course not all the things that the municipality does makes sense.  They have built a new municipal office over the top of these ancient ruins.