Last few days in Spain were intense and passed by like a flash. There was a lot we wanted to do and tons of places we wanted to visit but we had to decide how to end  our trip for now. We left Sevilla on Saturday with the intention of stopping by a couple of places on our road to Madrid. Driving through Extremadura we chose the town of Mérida for lunch and although they have interesting Roman buildings to see we just had time for a quick lunch, which turned out to be Torta del Casar (melted sheep cheese) with Iberian ham and Cruz Campo beer.

From there we headed to the old town of Plasencia for coffee. I wanted to visit it without exception as Plasencia is one of my family´s last names. We are not sure if the Spanish who arrived in Cuba were actually coming from this region or if one of the village neighbours could be genetically linked to us, it will remain a mystery, but it was a lot of fun to visit and to make photos of the place, the Plaza Mayor and the Cathedral.We did not stay long after coffee but the hour there was enough to notice the great number of apartments for sale and how the crisis has hit this special little town that back in the times of the Silver Route was pretty active.

Any country in the American continent would be proud to have and show only half of the beautiful constructions that some of these cities have and there they are, sometimes, standing and struggling to survive the years passing. Not always a lot of money can be invested in restoring and keeping small towns’ historical sites, particularly the ones that do not appear as the most attractive tourist destinations.

We stayed in Madrid the next two nights, overall spending time with friends. Yesterday, I was brave enough to hold my desire of staying in Spain longer. Annoying but true, our flight leaving Madrid was delayed three hours and while looking at Madrid’s clear sky I kept amusing myself thinking that the city did not want to let me go easily and that I could get along pretty well with Madrid if the possibility of me staying longer to work comes up.

Madrid is a city that I love and where more than one Cuban have found a home and happiness. It has the metropolitan character that I like and the perfect amount of warmth and craziness found in the south. Albeit the lack of ocean I will miss it, the same way I did when I left it in 2009.