Day 19 - Aldea del Cano to Cáceres (13 miles)

Today I headed for Cáceres. It is a World Heritage Site and everyone who knows it has told me how beautiful it is so I have booked two nights there to make the most of what it has to offer. From three miles distant it sat amid the landscape looking compact but boxy and modern. Crossing the fields and entering its outskirts I wasn’t sure what to make of it: narrow, dusty roads, small shabby industrial units and a sign indicating a tiny park that to me looked more like a patch of urban wasteland. Half an hour later I was still on concrete pavement surrounded by tired, charmless hospitals, schools and municipal offices. Whatever treasures this city offered seemed well protected from passing travellers behind layers of block-like, shabby modernity.

Final leg to Cáceres 

Things changed as I climbed the hill into what was the historical centre; I lost the Camino and I lost myself in the tangle of medieval narrow cobbled streets. High stone buildings hemmed me in and blocked my view except for directly ahead to a narrow slit of surrounding countryside. I followed where the streets led and came across small plazas surrounded by churches or grand old buildings with their carvings and towers. And I saw hardly a car - most streets were too narrow and others too steep and stepped. There were also very few people because most, it turned out, were in the cafes and restaurants of the Plaza Mayor, a more modern - but still old - addition to Cáceres, lower down and directly outside the 12th Century Moorish walls that contain this seemingly untouched medieval town.

I took a guided Tuk Tuk ride through the old city - the only vehicle that can easily get around - I walked some of the walls and visited a small museum. I still may not be able to fully understand old Cáceres and its history but I can not question its beauty.