Mérida was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Emerita, a city for veterans of the Cantabrian Wars, and it grew into the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. Few places in Spain carry their Roman past so openly. The circus lies on the eastern side of town, a long, flat oval of grass more than four hundred metres from end to end, with the low remains of the central barrier and the seating banks around it. It once held tens of thousands of spectators for chariot races, and though the stands are mostly gone, you can still walk the track and picture the teams thundering around the turning posts.
The rest of the Roman city is just as impressive. The theatre, with its two-storey stage wall of columns, still hosts a classical drama festival every summer. The amphitheatre stands beside it. The Puente Romano crosses the Guadiana in a long procession of arches, now pedestrian, and the National Museum of Roman Art, designed by Rafael Moneo, is one of the finest museums of its kind anywhere. Out of town, the Romans built two dams to supply water, Proserpina and Cornalvo, both still holding water, and the remaining arches of the aqueduct of Los Milagros stride across the valley of the Albarregas, with storks nesting on top.
The riding in Extremadura is about space. Long roads cross open dehesa, the parkland of holm oaks where black Iberian pigs forage for acorns, and the horizon stays wide in every direction. The old Roman road north, the Vía de la Plata, is followed by the modern A-66 and the N-630, and the smaller roads east towards Alange, a spa village with Roman baths still in use, are quieter and more pleasant. Do not expect mountain curves near Mérida; expect wide skies, lazy bends and a lot of light.
The climate is the main warning. Summer temperatures in Extremadura regularly climb above forty degrees, and riding in July afternoons is punishing. Spring, when the dehesa is green and covered in flowers, is the best season, and autumn is good too.
Mérida has everything a rider needs: fuel, workshops, hotels, and tapas bars serving jamón ibérico from the region, migas, and the torta del Casar, a soft, pungent sheep's cheese from near Cáceres.