Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 10 July 2018

Monument-filled, tourist-empty Extremadura is a Spanish gem

By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO palaces covered in coats
Associated Press of arms. It looks perfect
CACERES, Spain (AP) — The enough for a movie set, but
flamenco strains were so still feels real — I watched
haunting I asked the quin- a nun in a white habit and
tet of 20-somethings play- a briefcase hurry under a
ing guitars on the doorstep stone arch, not a selfie stick
of a massive, whitewashed in sight. In Plaza de San Ma-
centuries-old church if I teo, where a crested tower
could listen for a spell. and a bell tower jostle for
"Sure. Want a sip?" one re- height, I chatted about U.S.
plied, offering the litrona presidential politics through
— a quarter-gallon bottle a convent turnstile with the
of beer — they were shar- Kenyan sister selling me al-
ing. Then they went back mond cookies.
to jamming, their notes Places to visit include the
echoing up the steep, nar- Santa Maria cathedral, full
row lane in one of the most of conquistador tombs,
monument-filled, tourist- around the corner from the
empty cities in the Iberian Toledo-Moctezuma pal-
peninsula. ace built by a mixed local-
Caceres is a highlight of Aztec family, and the Casa
Extremadura, a Spanish re- de las Veletas museum,
gion of vast sun-parched with an arch-lined Arabic
landscapes and un- aljibe (cistern).
touched historical jewels But I found it hard to stop
exactly halfway between This October 26, 2017 photo shows the two-thousand-year-old Temple of Diana, one of the best making laps up and down
the ever-more-crowded preserved of the Roman monuments that fill Merida, Spain. the entire town, follow-
capitals of Madrid and Lis- Associated Press ing the sun as it marched
bon, Portugal. across stern yet sumptu-
I spent a weekend there res and Guadalupe. namesake city in Yucatan, Caceres' strawberry-gold ous facades, revealing
last October exploring Ro- IMPERIAL POWER Mexico. walled monumental core sculpted stone details like
man ruins, climbing up me- This small city played a Next to the monuments, in hugs a hilltop, with hardly grimacing gargoyles, lions
dieval towers and scarfing role in two of the world's a fortress built by a ninth- a single modern element holding an escutcheon,
down plates of the famed great empires, Rome's and century emir, I descended among slender medieval and a puffy-cheeked sun
local ham without seeing Spain's. the steps of a water cistern towers and Renaissance itself.q
one tour group. As their provincial capital, decorated with Roman
I traveled mostly on com- Romans filled Merida with and Visigoth marble pan-
fortable public buses that public and private show- els and carvings of leaves
rolled through olive and pieces. Centuries later, and grapes. Just past the
oak tree-studded hills, past many of the conquistado- bright-red bullfighting are-
fortified towns and palm- res that led Spain's domin- na, in the Roman Casa del
fringed farms, stopping to ion in the Americas came Mitreo, I marveled at the
pick up schoolchildren re- from this region (and re- bright turquoise sea de-
turning home and elderly turned to fill it with palaces). picted in a 2,000-year-old
couples going to market. Just across the two-mil- floor mosaic representing
Every stop appealed — es- lennia-old, half-mile river the cosmos, including a sun
pecially Trujillo with its cas- bridge, stand a couple of figure with a crown of rays
tle — but I focused on three monuments dedicated to exactly like the Statue of
must-sees: Merida, Cace- Merida by Rome and by its Liberty.
There is a Circus Maximus
so gigantic you can imag-
ine thousands of specta-
tors roaring as chariots
sped down the straight. But
what took my breath away
was the Roman Theater, its
stage wall decorated with
exquisitely detailed floral el-
ements and veined marble
columns that glowed blue
in the afternoon sun.
In the pedestrianized streets
of the workaday down-
town, I found the Augustus-
era Temple of Diana, its
huge colonnade framing
This Oct. 27, 2017 photo shows the Royal Monastery of Guada- a porticoed Renaissance This Oct. 27, 2017 photo shows the escutcheon on the Casa
lupe towering over the tiny mountain hamlet of Guadalupe in palace — two empires liter- del Sol, a 16th-century palace in Caceres, a monument-filled
Spain's remote Extremadura region. ally fused. hilltop town in Spain's Extremadura.
Associated Press GOLD TREASURE Associated Press