Spain has a lot of holidays. Being a Roman Catholic country, they have their fair share of saints. And, with its history of countless wars and battles over thousands of years, Spain has no shortage of heros. And, fictional heros. España observes a day each year for these reasons and more. Personally, yo pienso, that the Spanish are supremely skilled in milking time off for all that it is worth. Entonces, no tengo escuela el martes o jueves esta semana.
It has been raining here for weeks. Although I typically welcome anything that forces me to slow down, this still has seriously put a wrench in my moving about. On the plus side, all this rain has allowed me to estudio mucho espanol. Anyway, at some point last week, when I was moaning and groaning about all the cosas I could be doing, Jose promised to take me to Carmona on the next sunny day that he wasn’t working. This past Tuesday was a holiday and the sun came out for the first time in 3 weeks. Needless to say, I was thrilled when he showed up saying “Jamieeeee es un buen día. Vamos!”. So we were off to Carmona.
Carmona is a beautiflul town located 33 km northwest of Sevilla and they share a extremely close history. Raquel had mentioned this fact to me during my first week of school. And, since hearing this I have been longing to see this town. Although sometimes I think I just crave seeing anything that I haven’t seen before. I’m not even sure that I need a reason.
The entrance to the town is the ‘Alcázar de la Puerta de Sevilla’. It is a spectacular grand fortified gateway.
Remains have been found dating back to the 14th and 12th centuries BC. There is a plethora of history from Carthaginian, Roman, Moorish, and Christian times. This fortress controlled access along a major trading route.
We climbed the steps to the top of the tower and clocked the views of the countryside and the towns white-washed houses.
We meandered through the old calles visiting churches and other magnificent moorish style buildings.
I, of course, had a list of things that I needed to see before lunch, and on the top of that list was the ‘Roman Necropolis’.
The Roman Necropolis of Cármona was discovered in 1881. It is located very close to the town and only took us about 25 minutes to find it on foot. Of course neither of our GPS’s were working and I had to pull the “Perdona…¿Donde esta Roman Necropolis?” more than once. Y hace color aquí tambian. Pero, we found it.
Body cremation was the predominant burial rite used in this Necropolis. This fact relates with the particular belief over the transit between the life and the death of Roman society.
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