Many happy Meridas

'I wish we could see the cicadas, not just hear them'

It is Steve's birthday, and we are in Merida, sitting in a verdant garden filled with Roman pillars, statuary and flanked by towering edifices. White doves and cicadas compete for our attention.

The Romans divided Spain into three areas, and called this part Lusitania. At Merida itself they founded a colony named Augusta Emeritus, after the emperor Augustus. The remains of the magnificent theatre and amphitheatre are still there, in some cases sensitively restored.

I last visited the theatre in 1984, for an outdoor night-time performance of the Greek tragedy, Electra. It was over my head, in terms of its content rather than in Spanish language, but the atmosphere was remarkable. Today's was a day visit, and we managed to park in a side street, and tour some buildings, as well as the new museum, which I had not seen before. It's all laid out in a spacious fashion in a purpose-built brick building with several overhead galleries, with plenty of light coming in from several angles. So different from the gloomy museums of my youth!

What you see here is the glorious stage front of the theatre, not quite captured in all its magnificence because my phone does not do wide shots. My walking app says I did 142 minutes of walking, so we must have wandered around for longer than I realised. The weather was hot, but the town not unpleasantly touristy. The driving was ok, apart from the part where the TomTom failed and the in-car satnav guided us through town centres in French because I didn't know how to change the language, and a person from Stroud phoned, while I was trying to keep my eyes on the Spanish road signs, and the radio was blethering away in Portuguese!

On our return, we lunched, had a siesta, then went out for a drink with some British friends of B and G. I hope Steve will regard it as a memorable birthday.