Barcino

Living in the United States, it's often difficult for me to conceive of cities existing and being inhabited for millennia. The oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States is generally acknowledged to be either Taos or Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, depending on what source you read and whom you choose to believe. But since most of us don't spend a whole lot of time hanging out in Pueblos in the American southwest (although I have visited both), our historical context for the places we live and work is generally one to five hundred years old. I am a little shamed by my lack of historical awareness; after all I spent the first 11 years of my life in England surrounded by towns and cities far older than the oldest white settlements in this country.

Compared to Barcelona, most of England and all of the United States, including Taos and Acoma Pueblos, are babies. 1,000 years or 1,500 years of history is nothing to Barcelona which was founded in the third century B.C. by the Roman Empire, although none but the very prescient likely referred to the founding year of the city in quite that way. Barcelona (or Barcino as it was known Roman times) remained under Roman control from its founding in about 218 B.C. until sometime around the year 415 when the Visigoths occupied the city, ultimately forcing a partnership between the Visigoths and Rome for control of the city resulting in, among other things, the marriage of the daughter of Emperor Theodosius I to the Visigoth chief Ataulf.

Walking around Barcelona today, especially north of the Gran Via where our hotel on Carrer de Mallorca happened to be, it's difficult to see the city as existing 2,200 plus years ago. The city looks just as modern as somewhere like New York; there are boutique shops seemingly everywhere and the fabric of the city looks like somewhere planned well into the late 1700s or later. So when I read in my Lonely Planet guidebook that there were sections of the old Roman wall constructed in the fourth century still intact around the Barri Gotic, I knew I had to see some piece of that old wall for myself.

Roman wall and defense towers, Carrer Sots Tinent Navarro.

So after a day and a half of racing around to see the works of famed Art Nouveau architect Antoni Gaudí and a quick siesta after a lunch of chorizo sandwich and a typically bland Spanish beer, it was off to find a piece of the wall. I targeted the west side of the old city because there appeared to be three sections of the wall pretty close to each other. I figured these things would be difficult to find and if I missed one or two, maybe I'd get lucky and see the third.

As it turned out, finding the first piece of the wall we targeted was very easy. While it was down a pretty deserted single lane alley (for lack of a better term), the presence of a wall 16 centuries old seemed to be pretty obvious. But even better than finding the first piece of wall, there was interpretive signage next to it describing the history of the particular section and a map (below) showing all the other pieces. Turns out the Roman ruins are a legitimate tourist attraction. What started as a check the box, one off exercise suddenly became an afternoon treasure hunt. After all there were only eight pieces of the wall in a fairly compact section of the city. Surely it wouldn't take too much time to see them all. Having nothing to do until dinner, we set off.

The first part of the wall we visited was section number 6 on the map above. That piece of the wall was a section featuring some of the original defense towers constructed to keep the barbarians trying to sack the city at that time away from the inhabitants within the wall (ultimately of course this didn't work). Other sections of the wall are substantially similar. There is a corner piece of wall that shows a circular defense turret and a portion of the main city gate and aqueduct that brought water into the city from the north. Not all that exciting in and of themselves other than their age.

What is fascinating about these relics is the way the wall exists today. In some cases, the wall is free standing, like some of the defense towers. In other locations, it is actually used as the lower section of exterior wall of some later building or an arch in the old wall makes up a window of a newer structure, so the wall becomes in a sense a palimpsest of sorts, having its own story to tell through its own incompleteness. And the people around these historic sections of antiquity seem unfazed or unaware, strolling by on the way to some other business or having coffee in some alley cafe shaded by a wall generations and generations old while some tourists from America gawk at the pretty much completely unattractive rubble walls.

Roman aqueduct and old city gate, Placa Nova.

Cafe shaded by a section of the old Roman wall (on the left),

The star of Roman Barcelona and of our own mini scavenger hunt, though, is deep inside the old city walls and it's much older than the wall itself. The main temple in old Barcino was dedicated to Caesar Augustus and was constructed in the first century B.C. It sat on the main square of the city on a ten foot high stone podium and was one of the most important and imposing buildings in the city at that time. The exact history of the temple since Roman times is not exactly known, although there are accounts which imply the temple was intact in as late as the eleventh century. At some point in time, likely during medieval times, much of the temple was demolished to make way for other buildings. But not the whole thing.

As buildings were constructed in the middle ages, it seems that demolition of whatever was in the way was conducted selectively. If it didn't need to go, I guess you just took down what you needed to build on your own plot and left the rest intact. The process of man re-shaping the city eventually eliminated all but three of the columns in the southeast corner (or rear) of the old temple. At some point the columns turned from trash to treasure. They were reunited with a fourth column that had been relocated to elsewhere in the city and preserved in the courtyard of a residential neighborhood. The space that holds the columns is now open daily to visitors. This is the real deal.

If the existence of pieces of the wall next to cafes and as parts of churches amused me, finding these four columns intact and preserved was absolutely astonishing. There's only so long I can stare at four columns and a piece of architrave in a confined space, so after reading about the temple and its history, I was on my way. I believe the Roman wall and temple are the most complete Roman buildings I have seen to date (pathetic I know) and I feel the couple of hours spent tracking down each of these pieces was well worth it. I feel I understand a little more about the city of Barcelona for my troubles.

The Temple of Augustus, or what's left of it anyway.

The search for Roman ruins had one other side benefit. Since I didn't really plan on seeing all of the pieces of wall and the temple, I didn't really map out my route that well. Indeed, I never even marked all the spots on the hotel-provided map I'd been using to get around the city. Instead, I found everything by taking a picture of the map on the interpretive signage and then walking down the unmarked streets on that map while looking at the image on my iPod. The resulting route was a little chaotic and definitely one of discovery.

On our way from the temple to wall piece number 3 (which makes up the first ten feet or so of the south wall of a much newer building), we stumbled upon Gaelic BCN, a tiny but cool looking bar in an alley (appropriately called Carrer del Paradis) advertising good tap beer and tapas. After completing the Roman ruins quest, we made a beeline for this place as the first stop for dinner. We needed some food but I was especially impressed by the place advertising beer. I hadn't seen that much in Spain so I hoped my hunch paid off.

It did. In the hour plus we spent here, in addition to some lively conversation with our Columbian bartender, I had some of the best beer in my time in Spain. Barcino Brewers and Barcelona Brewing Company are two Barcelona-based microbreweries brewing beer in the spirit of the American craft brew movement. While at Gaelic BCN, I sampled Barcino's Gotic Pale Ale and Barcelona's La Bella Lola and Cerdos Voladares, a blonde ale and IPA respectively. All were good but if I'm having only one again based on my first bottle, I'll go with the Gotic Pale Ale. I love the label too. 

I like how the unexpected turns on vacations often lead to some of the best experiences. I'm sure this place wouldn't have been the same if we'd planned to go rather than just happening by. It's now one of my best memories.

Barcino's Gotic Pale Ale (empty) and Barcelona Brewing's La Bella Lola (in the glass).