Barcelona - Day 4 and some Roman ruins

We woke up early the next morning to make sure we were able to eat breakfast with Vanessa. Oscar had to leave real early so we said goodbye to him the night before. After another great breakfast we grabbed our packs, said our goodbyes and headed into the middle of the city. We still had yet to spend time walking down the Passeig de Gracia. Our first stop was Gaudi's Casa Milá aka La Pedrera. The rooftop is one of the best parts but, once again, we did not want to spend the money on the entrance fee. You can see good pictures of it here. We were however able to get into the gift shop and see some of the inside.

A little further down the street is the Casa Batlló, another one of Gaudi's creation. This one was even a little more expensive to get into so we enjoyed the outside.

We didn't like to walk everywhere with our packs on.

Right next door was the Casa Amattler, which was home to chocolatier Antoni Amatller. Underneath was a shop that sold some yummy chocolate.

We found out after a few difficult bites that this bar was made to put in hot chocolate.

At the end of the Passeig de Gràcia we found ourselves once again in Placa Catalunya. All the walking in the three days before had taken its toll on us. We found a nice bench in the sun and enjoyed watching kids try to catch pigeons for almost an hour. We said goodbye to the city and said hopped on the bus to the airport. Barcelona had been good to us.

We came back to Sevilla pretty wiped out, but fortunately it was an easy week because of Thanksgiving. We only went to the school tuesday and wednesday because on thursday we had another school excursion to Italica. Much of the old city is underneath the pueblo of Santiponce, but a large amount of area has been pretty well preserved, including the amphitheater. Salva again was our tour guide and Sarah was the interpreter.

Entrance to the amphitheater. It was the 3rd largest in the Roman Empire.

Hallways underneath the seats

This stadium, like most, had many trap doors in the ground where wild animals could pop up and surprise victims.

This was the VIP snackbar area.

Cool mosaic floors

This is the where they brought the animals underneath.

Then we headed into the old city. This road had pillars and a covering overhead.

There were lots of big houses in this neighborhood.

You could see the cities drainage system below.

This mosaic was in the middle of what is called "the bird house"
It depicts many rare species of birds from Africa.

This is the room where the owner would bring his guests to impress them.

Well preserved center courtyard.

and another

Another mosaic, very famous. Each picture is of a god representing one
of the seven days of the week. It was in great condition.

and yet another well preserved mosaic

We got up to get a good view over the gigantic bath house.

but there wasn't really that much to see.

Before we left for Italica we watch a movie at the school(which interestingly enough was narrated by the schools director, Leslie) that talked about the city's history and virtually depicted what the city and buildings probably looked like back then. It was good to get some sort of mental picture before seeing the ruins. I had no idea there was so many Roman ruins in Spain.