Ruta de la Plata: Merida to Salamanca

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Mérida

   In the year 25 BC the Romans founded a colony here for veterans of their wars in Hispania, named it Emerita Augusta, and made it the capital of the province of Lusitania. Two thousand years later, Mérida has more Roman remains than anywhere else in Spain, and they are not roped off in a museum. They are in the streets. A long Roman bridge, around eight hundred metres, still crosses the broad Guadiana on dozens of arches and is walked daily by locals. A theatre and an amphitheatre sit side by side near the centre, and in summer actors perform classical plays in the theatre in the open air. On the edge of town the tall brick piers of an aqueduct, called Los Milagros, the miracles, march across a field.

   Read the complete Merida write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Mérida is where the day begins. Next is Caceres.

2. 2. Cáceres

   Cáceres has two faces. The modern city spreads over the plain with shopping streets, apartment blocks and ring roads, and it is a normal busy Spanish provincial capital. Inside it, behind medieval walls, lies the old quarter, which is one of the best-preserved in Europe and has been a World Heritage Site since 1986. Here stand towers, palaces and churches of golden stone, built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries by noble families who had made money in the wars of the reconquest and later in the Americas. Many of the towers were cut down to the level of the roofs on the order of the Catholic Monarchs, who wanted to curb the power of the nobility, and the stumps are still visible.

   Read the complete Caceres write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cáceres comes up about 158 km into the recorded legs. Next is Salamanca.

3. 3. Salamanca

   Salamanca glows. Its buildings are built from a golden sandstone that takes on a honey colour in low sun, and the effect, especially in the late afternoon in the Plaza Mayor, is memorable. The city stands on the Tormes river in western Spain, about 800 metres above sea level, and is one of the great university towns of Europe, with a student population that gives the old streets life well into the night.

   Read the complete Salamanca write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 605 km.