Mérida is actually a surprisingly charming place, with lots of narrow cobblestone streets.
One of the things that constantly surprised us about Spain on this trip was how clean it was.
In the main fair downtown there was some huge medieval fair going on. It had to start up and shut down every few minutes on account o all the rain.
Lots of cool buildings here, with blends of ancient moorish and modern styles.
They were selling LOTS of goodies and sweets here. Sadly, we restrained ourselves.
This is down by an ancient Moorish fortress on the riverfront.
There's not much left of it now, but it's still used as museum and parts are now occupied buildings.
Ancient Roman Bridge! Awright! Again, not much is actually still ancient and Roman, but it IS that old.
Walking back into town in the rain, we kept running into more pockets of medieval festivities -- all desperately trying to cover up. We hung out in a very Spanish Irish pub and drank a pint of Guinness. MmmmmMm ... beeer.
After the rain let up, we resumed wandering.
This kinda makes you think that there's some construction going on here.
But actually, it's an ancient temple of Diana. This used to be the key temple in the Forum, which were the key market and business buildings.
It is now completely overrun by cute kitties.
This is an ancient monumental site, with various thingie dedicated to various important gods.
It's seen better days, but is still pretty cool.
Buildings in Spain are cool.
We then paid big bucks to enter the amphitheatre and Roman theatre site here in Mérida, which are supposed to be "the" reason to come here.
And they're right. The amphitheatre is pretty big, and pretty cool.
As you walk around, there's this sign helpfully tell you that there is a wall somewhere around here.
Oh, there it is.
We next headed over to the Roman Theatre, which is one of the better preserved ones around, and still used for summer performances, etc.
It's pretty nifty.
Probably kind of uncomfortable to sit here for 3 hours watching a play, though.
Archeologists call this the Casa Basílica. Uuuh. Sure.
Ancient Roman Poopers! There were baths and all sorts of neat things around this part of the complex.
Again, not much is left to really get a good feel for.
Next stop: towards the Casa del Anfiteatro, where performers and gladiators lived.
Not in the best shape, but there are some excerrent mosaics lying around.
I love how so there's so much ancient Roman "stuff" that they just have big piles of it. It's kind of like Lego.
We finally headed down to the Circus Maximus, where they had horse races. wheeeee!! The weather finally gave out on us here so we headed back to the car and out of town.
