Roman Stuff and Music

When the Romans occupied what is now Barcelona, it was a city called Faventia, and not a particularly important town in the Roman world. Still, it came with all the Roman fixings of walls and forums and other such stuff.

In typical fashion, the Roman stuff was well built, so instead of being torn down was incorporated into buildings or buried, occasionally becoming the basements of buildings. The Alpine Club of Catalonia purchased a building, exposed the Roman columns that were used in the building's atrium -- columns that used to be part of the Temple of Augustus, the largest religious structure in town -- and you can just walk into their building's atrium to see them.

Corinthian, I think

A lot of the walls are still standing, and I showed some of them in earlier posts. But the coolest part of the Roman stuff lies underneath a city square. The Museum of the History of the City sits in a 17th Century house. While renovating the house in the 1930's, the old Roman city was  found in the basement. Since then, several square blocks of the old Roman city have been revealed through excavations. Take an elevator down one floor and you find this:

The underground 

The map of the underground

There are hot and cold public baths. A winery. A church. Another church that was built on top of that church (and butts up against and leads under the current Basilica). Mosaic floor tile remnants.

Just like ones I've seen in Italy

Wall frescoes.

A rider

Amphorae still stained red with wine they held.

Red, of course

A fish processing facility, complete with fishhooks.

Vats and overflows and... 

Still sharp after 2,000 years

Funerary monuments.

Classic haircuts

And jewelry and pots and art and lots of other stuff. As the city progressed, stuff was built on top.

Roman winery underneath, 14th century building on top.

The museum complex is home to a pretty if austere little chapel built in the early 1300's with a cool wooden ceiling...

Cavernous 

Very tall 

Ceiling detail

...and the 14th Century's Royal Palace's Throne Room (not a bathroom) where it is said Columbus was received by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Awesome arches 

Not used for much other than concerts any more

Speaking of concerts (a poor segue)...

That being a fun museum, we were inspired to go and visit the Music Museum that day, too. There were aspects of the museum I liked -- instruments you could try...

Me on a synthesizer 

Me as a harpist 

Karen as a cellist

...but mostly it was about interesting instruments.

A... snakehorn? 

Not a great photo of a walking cane that turns into a violin 

More snakehorns? 

A harmonica collection. Look how tiny the one is, and the pipes on the other 

A string bass with... horns?

And some of the new instruments were kinda cool, too.

360 Bass head 

LPC head 

Strat head 

Genuine Moog synth 

An Atari? A Mac I would get, but an Atari?

I think the best display in the museum, though, was sort of static, but sort of interactive at the same time. It was a display of genuine period instruments of the chamber music era, set out as they would have been in a chamber music ensemble, and while you sat in the theatre with them, there was recorded chamber music playing on the loudspeakers, being played on period instruments. Very nice.

Everything from the 1700's

The music museum was cheap -- only €5 -- and worth it for the price. The History of the City of Barcelona was a riot and worth whatever the heck it cost.