We finished off our 1,300km roundtrip in style before saying goodbye to Spain. Roman bath in Alange, game of thrones castle in Trujillo and amazing Toledo didn’t make it easier to climb into our Ryanair seats bound for London.
Alange – do it like the Roman’s: the village is only a 15km drive from merida and located on the hills and shores of a large reservoir. We skipped the town though and headed straight for the roman thermal bath (balneario de alange). The complex is much larger than the one we visited in Banos de Montemayor, also part of a hotel (open to external guests) and mostly used by older generations. We booked the roman circuit (eur25/head) though not quite sure what we signed up for given language barrier. The circuit includes 15min in an inhalation room (air & moisture), 30min thermal bath and 20min hot mud pack. Very relaxing! Before heading towards Toledo, we stopped at the reservoir to take in some beautiful views.
Trujillo – winter is coming! Couldn’t resist to stop here after i found out that the castle towering over the city was used as backdrop for game of thrones as it served as template for casterly rock in season 7. Indeed one could think to be right in alleys of kings landing when trying to find where the car was parked exactly ;o) beautiful. You can actually drive all the way up to the castle through the old town. Just com with a small car rather than a SUV – it is tight for these roads were made for people & horses only.
Toledo – the imperial city: By now we had already left Extremadura and were in the autonomous region of castile-la mancha. We didn’t have / pllan much time to see the city and rather added it to the itinerary to be close to the airport for our journey home. Still, we both were stunned at how Toledo welcomed us on this fine evening.
Toledo, which has been declared world heritage, is essentially built on a hill (or several?) and thus stands out already. Add a few landmark buildings like a cathedral, a huge convent and loads of stone walls and it stands out even more. Also the inner fabrics of Toledo are intriguing with strong influences of christian, jewish and muslim history and a long tradition for bladed weapon production. There is a lot more, but i leave that to wikipledia.
Our hotel was located on a hill opposite with beautiful panoramic views over Toledo. Hard to imagine a better place to take this all in.
Adios España! It was wonderful.
