Knossos is an archeological site located in Crete just outside the capital city of Heraklion. The palace complexes built here by the ancient Minoans peaked around 1700 BC with a population of over 100,000 residents.
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Teatro Romano de Sagunto
Along the road between Sagunto’s town center and the castle we paused at the Teatro Romano de Sagunto. This 8,000-seat Roman amphitheater was built into the natural slope of the mountain during the 1st Century AD.
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Many layers of history are buried beneath the streets of Valencia. We visited the Centro Arqueológico de la Almoina where we were able to go underneath the city’s oldest square and walk through excavations from the Roman, Visigoth and Arab eras.
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“Lisbon is older than Rome” is a surprising claim we came across a few times during our stay. In fact it is 400 years older, settled by the Phoenicians around 1200 BC. The Roman Empire later founded their city of Olisipo on the site. Evidence from that era can still be seen in a few places.
We visited two fascinating archeological sites: the Núcleo Arqueológico and the Museu do Teatro Romano.
Castelo de São Jorge
After admiring the Castelo de São Jorge from many different angles since we arrived, we finally made a proper visit yesterday evening a little before sunset.
The Romans had created fortifications here by 48 BC, but most of the castle was built by the Moors in the 11th century. It was in ruins by the early 1900’s, then heavily reconstructed in the 1930’s and 1940’s, which is probably when most of the walls we see now were actually erected.