Lee studied Latin a full four years in high school and majored in it in college as well. Not surprisingly, then, the opportunity to explore Barcelona's Roman roots was impossible to ignore. So today, Heidi in tow, he set out on a walking tour of what remains of Barcino, the walled Roman town founded here in the first century. We visited a Roman graveyard, the two towers guarding one of the four city gates, part of an aquaduct, the remnants of the walls themselves, a ruined guard tower and some huge pillars, all that remains of a temple honoring Caesar Augustus.
Along the way we traced the outlines of much of the old city wall -- which remained in place for fully a thousand years before being torn down in the late nineteenth century.
The highlight of our trek, however, came with a visit to the Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat. Here we descended deep under the museum itself to tour the excavated ruins of much of the original city!
Amazing to see floor mosaics and wall frescos and everyday objects unearthed and then displayed in the very place where they were found! The unearthed structures, too, were fascinating: a laundry, a fish paste producing operation, a winery and a row of shops fronts besides the foundations of an early Christian church all were there fully in place just as they were originally.
We lunched at Estruch, a sleek contemporary cafe right on the Cathedral square, and there assembled our first meal of tapas. We wandered through more of the Gothic Quarter as well, especially enjoying a very talented street musician playing the violin in one of the squares and even a harpist strumming away on one of the narrow streets crisscrossing the area. The sun finally appeared as well, but the weather today was unseasonably cool overall. A warming trend is in the forecast for tomoorrow, however.
When dinner time arrived (around 8:00 PM), we walked down to the harbor for a platter of seafood paella at Can Majo and enjoyed an evening stroll back to our apartment just as the last rays of the setting sun outlined church steeples all over the city against the darkening sky - a magical moment!
We are becoming increasingly familiar with and feeling at home in central Barcelona. We haven't yet managed to get out of the Old Town area but still have done lots and lots of walking, just in this one part of town, as we explore more and more of all the city has to offer.
If the weather holds, we plan to venture out of town for the first time tomorrow to visit a municipal wide flower show in Girona, about ninety minutes north by train. -- that is, if we can get our act together and get on our way before noon (not the easiest accomplishment, we are finding, as we find ourselves "overcoming" jet lag by sleeping in later and later each morning as we manage staying up later and later each night).
Along the way we traced the outlines of much of the old city wall -- which remained in place for fully a thousand years before being torn down in the late nineteenth century.
The highlight of our trek, however, came with a visit to the Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat. Here we descended deep under the museum itself to tour the excavated ruins of much of the original city!
We lunched at Estruch, a sleek contemporary cafe right on the Cathedral square, and there assembled our first meal of tapas. We wandered through more of the Gothic Quarter as well, especially enjoying a very talented street musician playing the violin in one of the squares and even a harpist strumming away on one of the narrow streets crisscrossing the area. The sun finally appeared as well, but the weather today was unseasonably cool overall. A warming trend is in the forecast for tomoorrow, however.
We are becoming increasingly familiar with and feeling at home in central Barcelona. We haven't yet managed to get out of the Old Town area but still have done lots and lots of walking, just in this one part of town, as we explore more and more of all the city has to offer.
If the weather holds, we plan to venture out of town for the first time tomorrow to visit a municipal wide flower show in Girona, about ninety minutes north by train. -- that is, if we can get our act together and get on our way before noon (not the easiest accomplishment, we are finding, as we find ourselves "overcoming" jet lag by sleeping in later and later each morning as we manage staying up later and later each night).
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