Ruins on the Via De la Plata

One of my favorite things about traveling, is looking at ruins. I just love them. I can't imagine how it would be to live so close to them on a daily basis. Spain has quite a bit of great ones, my favorite being Roman. They also have ruins of churches and several Templar castles. In fact if you look thru all of the pictures I take, most of them will be ruins. I think I get it from Pa, if you look thru his photo albums countless rusted cars, and old barns will make their appearance.

On the very first day of walking you come to the site of Italica, an roman settlement that is fairly well preserved.

Looking over the foundations

Like every good town, it had its own coliseum

Look, I would have been able to stand up to the gladiators, if it was based on foot size.

The heads are always knocked off sadly,

Random old castle.

Another

The Spanish Town of Merida, is the best for roman things outside of Italy.  Above is what is left of the Temple of Diana. Merida is where Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator was from. It is also the birthplace of Trajan

From inside the museum. Luckily enough I arrived on a free day. Very airy and informative. I also got in trouble for forgetting to turn off my flash. A real rookie move.

The Remains of the Theater.

A Roman Bridge in the wee small hours,

This was roughly halfway point, and also probably the hardest day of my Camino. The day before I did over 40K's and this day was supposed to only be 30K's, but there were two routes and I ended up on the long one. at 36K. It was very, very hot.  And a lot of up and downs. I was so excited to get to this point, but by the time I got there, I had a blister burst and was too tired to explore. This is my one and only picture of the ruins of Caparra.

All along the way, at times you walk along old roman milestones. Here is a modern one they made.

Another old bridge, I usually only take pictures on sunny days, but I did experience other weather here it is a little cloudy.