The Temple of Diana is the best-looking ruin in Mérida, and it is not really a temple of Diana. Archaeologists now believe it was dedicated to the worship of the emperor, built in the first century on the municipal forum, but the name stuck from an old guess and nobody has bothered to change it. Of the original structure, a rectangular building raised on a platform, the front porch of tall granite columns still stands, with their Corinthian capitals gazing out over the roofs. They are surprisingly slender, and from the right angle they seem to hold up nothing but a very fine blue sky.
What makes it unusual is what happened next. In the sixteenth century, a nobleman named the Count of Corbos built a Renaissance palace right inside the temple, using the columns as part of his walls. That clever, slightly cheeky recycling is the reason so much of the temple survived, since the stones were not carried off for lime or building blocks. In the twentieth century, restorers removed the later additions from the front, leaving the palace partly attached and the columns freed to stand as they did in Roman times. The contrast between pale Renaissance brick and old granite is a nice study in how a place keeps changing.
Mérida today is a calm, friendly city of some fifty-six thousand. For motorcyclists, the practical advice is to park at the edge of the centre and walk, since the lanes around the temple are narrow and partly closed to cars. Fuel stations are on every approach and the cafés on the main squares do an honest breakfast. The ride goes east toward the hills of Guadalupe, a good run once you leave the flat plain behind. Summer heat can be extreme, so start early, and consider a pause in the shade of the temple's courtyard if you can find it open.
Evening is the best time to come back, when the stone catches the last sun and warms to a golden brown, and locals gather in the squares nearby to eat. It is hard to do better than a cold drink and a good seat within sight of those columns.