Medieval Barcelona (5 of 14)

The last thing we did in Barcelona before we headed to board our cruise ship was to visit the Museu D'Historia de Barcelona or the History of Barcelona Museum.

In the 1930's the medieval Royal Palace was dismantled to make way for Via Laeitana, a major thoroughfare in Barcelona. Each stone of the Gothic palace was numbered disassembled, moved and reassembled at its current location.

You can see how successful they were in their 'numbering' system. That arch was partially complete!

During the construction work to build the new foundations for the building archeologists unearthed the remains of the old Roman and Visigoth city. This Monumental Ensemble of the Placa del Rei includes an archaeological site covering a 4,000 square metre area of the subsoil of this square representing Roman Barcelona founded by the Emperor Augustus in around 10 BC to the 7th century AD.
We start at the lowest level of the museum where the majority of the Roman remains are specifically of the winery, laundry facility, fish drying plant and other buildings.

The location of the Roman street with respect to the present day lay out of the city.

It was difficult to discern what we were looking at. It's mainly rocks really. But the audio tour explanation and the detailed signs and pictures helped us visualize what was there some 2000 years ago.

The ruins were excellently preserved and presented to the public. We walked on scaffolding in order to fully see the vastness of the ruins.

The highlights were the laundry facilities (last half of 2nd century AD)..

Wealthy clients who drop off their clothing to be cleaned by the launderers. The mosaic square in the middle was the reception area of where they stood to drop off and receive their clothing.

This was the vat they used for processing fabrics. Ashes, lime and ammonia which were dissolved in water for washing and bleaching have been found here. The vessel embedded in the basin still contains ashes that were used for washing.

Did you know that the Romans used urine to clean their clothes? Ash, lime and urine were used to wash clothes and bleach colors. Lavender was used to scent and perfume their cloths and also served to keep out moths. Ingenious huh? Very efficient those Romans!

This is the salted fish factory (3rd century AD) where sea products were made including garum, a sauce that was made by macerating fish offal in salt and sometimes adding prawns, oysters and other shellfish.

This was a room for chopping and washing fish. These tasks were done on wooden boards and sloping floors. Once the fish were clean and chopped they were transferred to the maceration tanks (those huge ceramic round vats).

These were the large salted fish tanks where alternating layers of chopped fish and salt were laid in the tanks to be left to macerate for 20 days. Garum was prepared in the smallest tanks.

 These were the wine vats and ..

...wine cellar where the wine was processed and aged. The vessels embedded in the pavement were used to hold honey and sea salt, ingredients that were added to the wine.

A Roman Bath (5-6th century AD)

A cold water pool.. baths were later built over the remains of the old workshops.

Roman art work

As we continue to the upper level of the museum away from the ruins we enter into the Major Royal Palace, which was the oldest residence of the kings of Catalonia and Aragon in the city.

This was where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella entertained their guests with big banquets etc..

Beautiful decor on the walls

The people were sure short way back then!

... and the Palace Chapel of the Royal Palace built by King James II at the beginning of the 14th century.

 Before we leave Barcelona I forgot to share with you the girls favorite eatery in Barcelona was...

Every morning we went to Dunkin' Coffee to get a donut (for Hannah) and bagel with turkey & cheese (for Emily).

NEXT UP: Ahoy Mates!

Gaudi's Masterpiece (4 of 14)

Sagrada Familia or 'Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family' or what I call Gaudi's masterpiece is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona designed by Antoni Gaudi.

It is still incomplete and a continued work in progress. Construction started in 1882 and is projected to be completed in 2026 (100 years after Gaudi's death.) Construction is slow going because of it's unique detailed designs and because it is completely financed by the public and private donations.

A model of the completed basilica.

When Gaudi died, the basilica was only 10-15% complete. The Spanish Civil War in 1936 also interrupted the building process.

You can see the cranes still at work.

Gaudi's design of Sagrada Familia included double aisles, an ambulatory with seven chapels, 18 spires representing the twelve apostles, four evangelists, the virgin Mary and Jesus (as the tallest spire). As of 2010, four spires have been built. Christ's spire surmounted by a giant cross will be 560 feet in height making it the tallest church building in the world.

Everything is so ornate and finely detailed from the floors to the ceilings..

The door

The floor as we enter into the church

The Church will have three facades: the Nativity facade to the east, the Passion facade to the west and the Glory facade to the south (not yet completed).

 My favorite part was the Nativity facade...

We were able to go up on one of the 13 (planned) towers. Two have elevator access and only 8 are currently complete.

A beautiful view from the top of a tower.

You can see the 'neon lipstick' building in the background.

Each tower is 20 stories high and we had to walk down a very narrow spiral staircase. That was a workout! My legs could not stop shaking afterwards.

THIS is a narrow....

... staircase!

And SO spiral.. I literally touched every part of the rail going down!

The interior of the Sagrada was breath-takingly ornate...

Some creative photography..

What do you see Kyle?

NEXT UP: Medieval Barcelona

The Ruins (3 of 14)

On the next day, our second private tour was a walking tour given by Vivian. She's originally from Brazil; traveled all over the world and has now settled in Barcelona.

Our first stop was to Placa Sant Felip Neri or 'Sant Felipe Neri Plaza' one of our guide's favorite plazas in Barcelona. It's beautiful, peaceful and quaint, yet is also very tragic. 

In 1926, the famous architect, Gaudi was walking to the church in this tiny square and was run over by a tram and died. In 1938 during the Spanish Civil War,  a bomb blast killed many people including 20 children who were sheltering in the church. A small memorial plaque is posted to remember them along with the pockmarked stone walls of the church a result of the horrific bombing.

The commemorative plaque above Emily's head.

The pockmarked stones were very deep in some areas.

Our guide tells us that Spain does not like to remember their deaths/tragedies as Americans do. We, in the US, erect memorials, statues, or structures to commemorate those who lost their lives unexpectedly for our country. In Spain, they try to hide their tragedies and desire to not dwell on such sad events. Thus the tiny plaque on the wall. If I was not told about the significance of this plaza, I would have never known what had truly happened here.

The Barcelona Cathedral or the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia is a gothic cathedral and the seat of the archbishop of Barcelona.

This cathedral was dedicated to the Eulalia of Barcelona, a young 13 year old who converted to Christianity and subsequently was tortured 13 times (one for every year of her life) by the Romans. Known as a martyr, her body is entombed in the cathedral's crypt.

Santa Eulalia shrine displayed on a street corner

The cathedral is built on top of the Roman Ruins.... and we walked the surrounding area while Vivian pointed out the structures that are still standing today.

She's showing us the original layout of the Roman city (built on the raised ground of a hillock called Mons Taber) where they created a very efficient aqueduct system to bring water into their city. Some of the aquaducts are still existent today.

The remains of the Roman aqueduct, at the main entrance. This was one of the only 4 points of entry into the Roman city and it was so heavily fortified that the structure has withstood nearly 2000 years of bombardment, upheaval and changing architectural designs.

Rear of the cathedral

These are the original columns from the Roman temple (one of the most important buildings in the Roman city) which was situated in the center of the forum. Only 4 of nine-metre high columns are preserved from the temple along with the architrave that joined them and part of the podium.

Check out how large theses columns were (to the far right) compared to us little people.

Now these steps were significant.. why? Do you recognize the picture from your elementary school textbooks?

Placa del Rei (King's Square)

It's Christopher Columbus coming back to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

It is on these steps that Ferdinand and Isabella greeted Columbus as he returned from his first voyage to the New World. Within this fascinating building is the Barcelona Museum and King's Palace (which we did go see inside and will be shared in a future post).

More ruins to be found..

Excavation is still going on... this is a picture of back of a hotel which was going to create a parking lot but discovered more ruins of the Roman city. Thus they stopped.

I can not end this post without what we ate... so back to La Boqueria

It's busy day and night!

This is ham or jamon iberico, the top quality Spanish hams is made of pigs fed on a special diet (acorns, herbs and olives) and are cured for at least 12 months (some even take up to five years!).

Their 'jamons' are not the same as our ham. It's finely sliced and have a smooth texture and taste. Not salty like our prosciutto (which is parma ham) back home.

Cheryl's expensive purchase!

There are numerous bars to satisfy your seafood taste buds. Freshly cooked in front of you.

Razor Clams!

Juice bars are at every corner offering freshly squeezed juice from any fruit you can imagine! And for 1euro it's delish! I had two cups of freshly squeezed orange juice! Oh so sweet!!

Fresh Pasta Bar!

I got ravioli with bolognese sauce while Hannah got fetticine with tomato sauce.

Off of Las Ramblas is a hidden gem of 'asian' type food called Wok to Walk. It's like Mongolian stir fry where you chose your ingredients and they stir fry everything together for you!

NEXT UP: Gaudi's Masterpiece