Spain, part 2

Here are some more of my pictures from my trip. I really winnowed them down so as not to bore you.

Claire on one of those challenging streets that I told you about. Others were equally as steep, if not more so, but this was the only one with a railing.What you can't tell from the picture is how rough the cobble stones were.

People did live here and decorated their homes with flowers. I can't imagine getting groceries up and down those streets, but it sure was picturesque.

About half way up this same village was a plateau with this incredibly manicured maze garden. We saw women working on them trimming them by hand with clippers and shears.

These next few pictures are from the city of Merida, which was once the capital of the province of Lusitania founded in 25 BC. It is home to an impressive collections of Roman ruins, including an amphitheater and theater. It was as good as anything I had seen in Italy.

This statue of Diana was a reproduction, as were all the other statues in the theater and there were many. All the real states that were unearthed in the excavation are housed in the incredible museum in the city.

A small section of the museum. You went down two flights of stairs from the entrance to get to this, so that the ceilings were three stories high. There were many, many statues, mosaics and artifacts.....all the real thing found in the excavations which are still ongoing. One very interesting fact and new to me......there were many statues without heads or arms and I thought that they had been broken off. After all they were more than 2,000 years old. But, no, they were made that way as generic statues and then if someone commissioned a statue, the head and arms would be made to the specifics of the patron. How cool is that, all those years ago? Those Romans were pretty smart!

We also saw aqueducts that are still being used as bridges for pedestrians. Amazing!

I can't seem to get out of the caption section of the pictures, so I will stop here and come back again in a couple of days with more pictures and a funny story.