Today we had a short cycling day so we could spend more time in Caceres. We woke leisurely to the headline news that the UK had come last again in Eurovision.  Maybe one point is a little better than ‘nil point’, but its marginal.  We were not bothered and no one else seemed to be as we had breakfast at the hotel.

It was Sunday morning and all was quiet as we strolled out into the Plaza Mayor. All the half marathon paraphernalia had been cleared, almost as if it had never existed, and now we could see what a beautiful space it is, bathed in the bright morning sunshine, backed by blue sky. We strolled again into the walled old town – constructed by the moors but added to in every subsequent century.  Conquistadors, made good on plundered wealth from Central and South America, added to the old town as they endowed churches and built themselves grand palaces, including one who brought back the daughter of the defeated Aztec emperor, Moctezuma, as his bride.

We took an excellent audio tour of the concatedral de Santa Maria (namely a “co-cathedral, which was a new concept to us). Clearly there had been ‘cathedral wars’ between the people of Coria and the people of Caceres, all in the same diocese. A clerically appropriate political solution had to be found and, in 1957, Santa Maria became a co-cathedral with the principal church in Coria getting the same status.  A judgment of Solomon so to speak.

That aside it is a beautiful building – a gothic structure from the 15^th century with later romanesque additions. The vaulted ceilings and old organ were beautiful but the piece de resistance is a huge magnificent carved wood alter piece. The rest of the chapels were adorned with gothic carvings – gaudy to our eye now – but the alter piece was saved from gilding and painting because it was going to be too costly. The whole church is stuffed with the coats of arms of various influential local families, with their endowments attempting to buy their way into heaven. The latest chapel was added in the 1960s so perhaps this is an idea that hasn’t faded yet.  A small museum was full of silver items, statues and embroidered vestments.  Going up the tower on a tiny spiral staircase was fun and afforded a great view of the bells and lovely views over the old city.

We had toyed with going to the museum but, as the tour of the cathedral was so comprehensive, we followed our usual rule of doing one good thing a day properly rather than trying to fit too much in.  As we strolled back into the Plaza Mayor we came upon a marching band of maybe 100 members milling about and striking up rather tunelessly.  Once they had finished greeting each other, exchanging gossip, taking calls on their mobile phones and tuning up, they were eventually called to order and formed up.  They, led by the drums, they marched off across the square and down a side street.  Watching order (of sorts) created out of chaos was a little moment of delight.

It was Sunday but unusually there was a ‘Carrefour Express’ open in the city centre so we stocked up with food, confident that nothing would be open in the little village we were heading for (a correct assumption). We finally pedalled off around 12.30 with panniers somewhat more laden. I chuckled that I had spent hours weighing everything to try and keep our weight down, but this fades into insignificance when you throw in a litre of milk and things for lunch, supper and breakfast, as well as essential cycling snacks.  Not to mention almost 3 litres of water each!

The scenery was rather drab and bleak but the road surface excellent as we ate up the kilometres. We had imagined having a picnic and swimming at the huge reservoir formed by the river Tagus but this turned out to be equally bleak, surrounded by scrubby hillsides and with no access to the water.

A gate firmly prohibiting entry to the one sign of life at the ‘Club Nautico’.  Our picnic was therefore a quick sandwich to keep us going for the final 10km up hill to our destination – a hostel in the small village of Canaveral.

We are still on the Camino and see occasional walkers. They are serviced by a series of ‘albergues’ and private rooms. Not being pilgrims we tended to avoid these but lack of any other accommodation necessitated for this evening – particularly as we had been able to book a little studio apartment with cooking facilities rather than a shared dormitory, which we most definitely avoid these days!

We ended the day by ambling around the village which was surprisingly extensive.  White walled buildings in narrow alleys, a C14th church and various bars made up the village – both typical and charming.  Life here may not be hugely exciting for the locals, as groups of bored teenagers hanging around appeared to confirm, but these are functioning little communities which have existed for hundreds of years and continue to thrive.