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!