Caceres

Hmmm... what to say about our brief stop over in Caceres on the way to Lisbon. I was expecting it to be this small town made up mostly of the old walled city so you can imagine my surprise when we rolled past the city limit sign to find this bustling urban center with tall-ish buildings and modern retail. With no parking available near our hotel we pulled into a garage and hoofed it about 10 minutes into the old part of the city. And it, of course, began to rain.

The hotel I found was very convenient to the historic sites and was actually in a pretty old building itself with high ceilings, tall doors and Victorian furniture in the common areas. It was okay for one night but I wouldn't have wanted to stay there more than that. There was very little knowledge of English in Caceres so we had to rely on what we'd learned pre-trip and our phrase book. I will say that it was worth the stop given we needed to break up the long drive and the walled city is pretty impressive.

We saw this big bull cutout along the way, pretty funny.

When we found our way out to the main plaza in town we could tell something was up. There were a bunch of chairs set up and lots of people milling around. After a while people started lining up and the distant sound of drum beats could be heard. Eventually a rather lengthy religious processional made its way into the square. It was Tuesday evening of the week before Easter and as we saw on the news later, Catholics all over Spain were celebrating the week with processionals like the one we saw.

We found a place for dinner after the parade and then wandered the old city some more before retiring for the night. The plaza stayed busy for a long time after the processional ended.

In the morning we tried to get breakfast at this hot chocolate/pastry place we'd wandered by the night before but the claim of opening at 9AM on their door was lies! (Apparently this isn't surprising during a holiday week.) We found an open cafe with a limited menu and both had a breakfast of thick toast topped with diced tomatoes and ham. It was actually pretty tasty, like large bruschetta. We rescued the rental car from the parking garage and headed on our way to Portugal, leaving the need to try and speak any more Spanish behind us. Oh and for anyone who is curious as to whether there was any fanfare at the Spainish-Portuguese border, there wasn't. We didn't have to stop although there was a tourist office available. I was kinda hoping for a stamp in the Passport but I suppose not being hassled is probably a good alternative.