Tim didn’t sleep well in the Kremlin style hotel but their underground garage was pretty good for the bikes so that was the plus side. We were waiting at the door for breakfast at 7am almost ready to go and in need of breakfast after our sparse dinner.Tim had downloaded our route out of Badejoz on his map out app on his phone, it had lead us into a few difficulties not recognising things like one way streets but all looked good as we cycled out of Badejoz , even on a proper cycle path next to the road.This went well till we had to cross the road and our route disappeared into a bumpy lane, the road we were cycling next to had now turned into a motorway ,no bicycles!We continued down the bumpy lane even when we kept seeing warning signs and no cycling signs Tim reassured me its just a bit further after the river then we will be on the main route going east.Well we got to the river, no bridge, just what looked like a fairly deep river.Even with a normal bike I might not have attempted crossing it.We cycled further down to a walking route maybe a foot bridge , nothing just a wall of water.Tim looked on his phone I activated my roaming , we had to go all the way back and further south to cross the river, kms extra.We turned around and as we cycled next to motorway we saw cyclists on the motorway. We looked at each other, right if Spanish cyclists can cycle along the motorway so could we. We headed on just as we were entering the motorway we met a Spanish cyclist on his own and he indicated we tuck in behind him, I obviously looked terrified.We negotiated the motorway and crossed the river and were back en route.

We then had a delightful ride across the flat Plains of the Guadiana River which we occasionally glimpsed and followed all the way to Merida.It was agriculture lands with stunted olive trees protected by pines to vineyards all also pruned very low.We detoured into Montijo for coffee and found a cafe in front of one of those really old churches.The morning was quite chilly so jacket was required whilst drinking.No preparations much for Easter here, in Portugal huge tubs of extra flowers were being unloaded off trucks to brighten up town squares.

The flooded river. Badejoz ramparts

Merida was a delight to cycle into being immediately confronted by remains of Roman aquaduct’s and the beautiful Guadiana River with islands and parks in the middle.We also saw the huge Roman bridge the longest well preserved one in the world and still in use.We had booked an apartment as it seemed the only place that guaranteed a garage for our bikes, hard to find in an old historic city. We cycled close to where we thought the apartment was and settled into a restaurant/bar for lunch.Tim managed to get a decent hamburger and chips but I had ordered off the tapas menu and got 8 postage stamp size pieces of tuna with some avocado puree, still hungry…At this point I checked my phone to see the phone number I had to ring to meet someone at the appartment to let us in. Agghh our booking had been cancelled our card hadn’t gone through and they had messaged saying pay by 12 or your booking will be cancelled! I phoned using our local sim card but they didn’t speak any language except Spanish, luckily a lady on the next table offered to help. She talked to them, gave a credit card number but as we had an Australian what’s app and not Spanish we now had to collect the key from a hostel supposedly 5 mins away. We thanked the lady and Tim paid for her drink.This 5mins away turned out to be a 15 mins bike ride , fortunately along the cycle paths on the islands so quite pretty but we had already cycled 70kms!

The hostel owners were expecting us but didn’t speak anything but Spanish so via google translate I learnt how to get in and where to leave key when we left.I forgot to ask re WiFi so no blog yesterday!

Back we cycled and got our bikes and selves into the appartment.It was an amazing appartment on the top floor and so modern.I would have been quite happy to collapse in a heap but we had no food!Supermarket didn’t open till 5pm but by the time we walked their it was 5pm.We walked back by the Roman amphitheatre and ruins which we could see through the fence so well preserved, if we had got into the appartment as planned we would have had time to visit them….

It was good to cook our own dinner and sit on our terrace looking over rooftops, all that running around was worth it! A surprisingly peaceful night.