We slept like we’d been tranquilised. Shutters half shut, fan ticking, no clinking from the fridge, no toilet smell. Mary said she dreamed about chairs. Just chairs. That’s how far we’ve fallen.
We left the Parador after breakfast, which was mostly things in packets and a yoghurt I didn’t trust, and set out in the heat thinking we’d just have a wander.
First stop was the Teatro Romano de Mérida, because every guide and every blog and every bloke in a linen shirt says you have to see it. And fair play, they’re right. It’s ridiculous. Still standing after two thousand years and still somehow more elegant than any hotel lobby we’ve walked through. We sat where senators might’ve sat. Mary read the plaques. I listened to a German man tell his daughter something incorrect about gladiators. Then we wandered out past the ticket booth where a woman was shouting at her boyfriend because he bought the wrong type of ticket. I said nothing and kept walking.
The Templo de Diana was next, eventually. We got lost and ended up in a hardware shop. Bought duct tape and a folding hook. Don’t ask why. Found the temple tucked between a tapas bar and a clothes shop. Massive columns. Mary stood there fanning herself and said, “You forget how long people have been building pointless things.” I said nothing. I was too hot to argue.
We passed the Alcazaba, walked the Roman bridge, got sunburned without noticing, and ate a tomato salad at a place with plastic chairs and a waiter who said “por fin” when I asked for two beers. At one point I said, “We used to work in a post office,” and Mary just nodded like that explained everything.
We got back to the Parador with feet like boiled meat and I was ready to sleep for a week, but Mary stood at the window and said, “There’s a stage going up.” I groaned. She ignored me.
Ten minutes later we were sat outside with cans of Mahou watching a dozen people in Roman costumes rehearse what looked like a full-on tragedy. Plastic swords, fake beards, sandals and headsets. A lad playing Caesar kept checking his phone. A woman in a toga shouted something about revenge and got heckled by a local pigeon.
Mary looked smug. “Told you we weren’t leaving tomorrow.”
I said, “You don’t even like theatre.”
She said, “I like the bit before it starts.”
And she was right. It was the best thing we’d seen all day.
