El Pueblo Antiguo de Itálica! (The Ancient Town of Italica!)

Yesterday, I went to the ruins of the town of Italica, the first Roman city in the Iberian Peninsula (which is the peninsula where Portugal and Spain are located). The city was founded in 206 BC! It was a great experience, we were able to walk in buildings from thousands of years ago. We saw Roman roads. We saw an amphitheatre that used to sit 30,000 people, where they used to hold gladiator fights way back when. I took lots of pictures and was geeking out the whole time ("Guys, this is so old!").

Itálica is only 20 minutes away from Sevilla, so we hopped on a bus to get there. Only 1,45 euro.

Me and Andrea (from Chicago) on the bus.

Part of the town wall is still standing, that's the stone you see on either side of my friends, haha.

After entering the town, we were able to walk into what-used-to-be residences and other buildings of the town.

El Edificio de la Exedra

El Edificio de la Exedra. Used as a residential building.

A re-creation of the building in the image above. Those columns in the first image are part of the red you see in the photo here. The circle in the foreground of the first image is what they believed would have been an entry-way to the rei

More of the columns from the building above.

House of the Birds

This is from what we'd call "The House of the Birds", which was another residence. This was part of the interior of the courtyard, near the bedrooms in the building. Obviously, the plants are new. Structures are not.

Then we saw some Mosaic's from some of the residences. The amount of detail in these mosaics is not as evident in the pictures, but they're all made with tiny tiny stones/tiles. It must have taken forever. And I think it's amazing that it's been able to stay 2,000+ years!

Neptune's Mosaic

Roman Road

Me&Kaley. On a Roman road. Nbd.

Another mosaic. Unfortunately I don't remember what this one was called. But again, great attention to detail.

Me&Mosaic

A functioning town (Santiponce) just on the outskirts of Italica.

Sculpture of Emperor Trajan

Emperor Trajan was the first Roman emperor who wasn't born in Rome. He was born in Itálica. 

Me&friends&Trajan

Amphitheatre
The amphitheatre was probably the coolest part of the trip. According to my history professor, it and the Colosseum were used to model the amphitheatre in the movie Gladiator. In it's time, it sat 30,000 people, who all came to watch Gladiator fights. It's about half the size of the Colosseum in Rome.

The arena of the amphitheatre. The seats are those high things on either side. 

Everything at Italica was in Spanish, but from my understanding, these were underground passages in the amphitheatre that were used by the participants. 

Walls around the arena, entrance to the gallery, seats above.

Shot of the amphitheatre from above. Gives a little more detail on the seating.

Me in the Gallery of the amphitheatre. Where my lions at?

"Tabula Gladiatoria" hanging in the amphitheatre. 

"Venus of Italica"

"Diana the Huntress" Not sure who she was.

I had a really cool day in Itálica. I've never really been anywhere that's sooo old, and that made me feel really appreciative of my time there. I think some of our group got a little bored, since we walked a lot, and essentially we were just looking at rocks. But I think those of us who were able to look past the rocks were able to really appreciate it. I mean, we were walking where the Romans walked thousands of years ago! I've never been anywhere that was influenced so highly by the Roman empire. And idk, maybe the coolness isn't as obvious as it would be in some other places, but I still think this trip was amazing.

This trip also made me realize that I made a good choice with my classes for this semester. I'm taking two Spanish language courses, Spanish history, and Spanish culture. And I would have had no idea that Itálica was even here if I hadn't heard about in in my history and culture classes. So I think it's really good that I'm taking these classes for that reason. Another reason is that my classes helped me to appreciate Italica a little more while I was there. Honestly, I'm pretty naive about European history in general, and just what I've learned over the last week about the Roman conquest and Roman society helped me to really appreciate and understand what we were looking at. I think the classes I am taking will help to supplement my trip even more than I had expected.

Another thing I noticed in Itálica was that I had some difficulty with knowing what we were looking at sometimes. Like.. they'd have a plaque next to something with a big long description of what it was, but it was all in Spanish. And I'm not really used to vocabulary words surrounding gladiator fights and ancient buildings, so my comprehension was a little low. But I think it'll just take more practice and patience :)

The other day, when I was shopping, I paid for something and the cashier handed me change. And I looked at the coins she gave me and one of them really sparked my attention:

1 euro coin with the Vitruvian Man (da Vinci)

When I realized what I had received, I excitedly asked the cashier (in Spanish) if it was from Italy. And she said it was. And I evidently seemed really stoked, because then she added that they saw a lot of them there. But I still thought that was really cool!

Here's what the front of a euro looks like, in case anyone's interested :)

Tonight, I'll be going to a cycling class here for the first time. The class will be completely in Spanish, so I'll probably wind up peddling backwards or something the whole time. But I'm going with my friend Kaley, so even if I'm confused, I won't be the only one. ;)

I think that's all for now. Talk soon :) besos besos.