Itálica

At the end of October, I visited the Roman city of Itálica!  The bus ride there may have only been 30 minutes, but I traveled back 2,000 years to the first Roman city founded in Spain and birthplace of the Roman Emperors Trajan and Hadrian!  It was pretty awesome!  Luckily, the day I visited happened to be a day of European heritage, so there were free tours all day!  That was great because I got to learn a lot more about the city than I would have otherwise.  The city is not too huge and there are no structures standing anymore, just the foundations, but it was really interesting to imagine what it must have looked like.  There were homes and bath houses that had nice mosaic floors and some crumbling walls.  There were also a lot of brick bread ovens.  I went alone, but I had a fun enough time wandering the Roman streets and enjoying the scenery.  It felt very Roman with withered grass and cypress trees everywhere!  Outside of the city walls is the amphitheater and this was by far my favorite part of the city!  It is one of the largest and best preserved amphitheaters in the entire empire, so it was awesome to just walk in and think of all the gladiators that walked through the same entrance.  

Free tour of the city (all in Spanish, of course)

A wealthy family's house, complete with many bedrooms and a courtyard!

An old Roman statue!

Charming street in Itálica

Just jumping around among the ruins!

The great scenery!

The mosaic floor of the House of the Planetarium
(it features the 7 Roman gods and goddesses who have given their names to the days of the week)

The staircase that I climbed only to have whistles blown at me by angry guards...oops!

Chilling with a Doric column

The Roman roads...the first flat and solid roadways in Europe!

Modern statue of Trajan, who expanded the city once he became Emperor!

Overview of the amphitheater

Inside the amphitheater!  SO AWESOME!

Inside the corridors that run around the whole amphitheater

The seats!