More Roman heritage from Mérida, Spain

by Sean McLachlan on

In the Extremaduran city of Mérida, it feels like at any moment you’re going to turn a corner and meet an ancient Roman. Sometimes that almost happens.

This fellow was at the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, a world-class museum featuring Roman statues, mosaics, and other artifacts. Built by the famous architect Rafael Moneo Vallés, it looks like an old Roman basilica, with lofty arches, wide corridors, and lots of natural light. This allows each artifact to have plenty of space so it can be viewed from all angles. My five-year-old son loved this place. With the crowds dispersed in such a large area, he didn’t have to keep close to my side all the time. He could wander at will (within my sight, of course) and examine the chariot races on the mosaics all by himself. He also liked the basement, which included a Roman road and several crypts.

While the museum is one of the best I’ve seen, the whole city is actually a museum. Behind a cafe I saw spare chairs stacked under a Roman arch. The local church incorporates parts of a temple to Mars. The main pedestrian bridge across the Rio Guadiana, dating to about 25 BC, is the longest surviving Roman bridge in the world.

Last time I talked about the Roman theater and amphitheater at Mérida. These are the two most popular sights in town, but perhaps more impressive is the Casa del Mitreo. This Roman mansion is located near the subterranean temple of Mithras, a mystery religion that was the main competitor with Christianity for the hearts and minds of the Romans in the late Empire. It’s not clear if the house was actually associated with the temple, but a beautiful, complex mosaic on the library floor suggests it was. It shows the divine principles of sky, earth, and sea in a vast interconnected group. These aren’t gods, but ideas, such as Copiae, the riches of the sea; Aestas, the summer; and Chaos. The whole mansion has been excavated and protected under a modern roof, so you can stroll around on a modern walkway and look down the bedrooms, patios, and wall paintings. My wife voted this the best attraction in town. Near the house is a rather spooky Roman graveyard.

%Gallery-112140% On the edge of town you can see one of the best preserved Roman hippodromes in the world. Chariot races were even more popular than gladiator fights or plays. Like the theater this was an institution that the early Christians disapproved of. But like the Mérida theater, it got a major face lift courtesy of the early Christian emperors in the years 337-340 AD. It took some time for the Christians to enforce their strict morality on the Roman populace. Walking along the 440 meter (481 yard) long racetrack you can easily imagine cheering crowds and crashing chariots. Thirty thousand people could be seated here. Nearby are the remains of one of Mérida’s two aqueducts.

Mérida protected the crossing of the Guadiana river, and so even after the Roman Empire crumbled it was an important spot. The Visigoths, a Germanic tribe, built an imposing city wall and fortress here. Little of that period remains, but the next rulers of Mérida, the Moors, built a sprawling fortress called the Alcazaba next to the bridge. When we visited we had the place pretty much to ourselves. My son got to walk the ramparts and look out over the river, imagining what it would have been like to live in those times. He especially liked exploring the dark tunnels under the main tower, which lead to a cistern that provided the soldiers with water. The upper story of this same tower was once a mosque.

“Fun for the whole family” is a horrible travel writing cliché, but it does apply to Mérida! While the modern town isn’t much to look at, it’s full of ancient surprises. The food and wine are great too. More on that in another post.

Don’t miss the rest of my series on Exploring Extremadura, Spain’s historic southwest

Coming up next: The Visigoths: Spain’s forgotten conquerors!

Tin Soldier Museum in Valencia

by Annie Scott on

Valencia, Spain is home to the Tin Soldier Museum, Museo L’Iber, the world’s largest collection of tin soldiers (they have over 80,000). They have tin dinosaurs, tin designer fashions, tin Iraq war scenes and tin royalty. The museum is actually an amazing historical resource, as important political and international scenes from across the ages are set up and portrayed as accurately as possible in tin and toys. Naturally, Spain gets the most attention. If you’re going for a visit, which costs just €4, bring a guide who can translate for you; they don’t have English descriptions for the exhibits. And, if you’re a collector, bring your wallet — there’s an impressive gift shop with miniature treasures you won’t likely be able to resist.

The Tin Soldier Museum collection belongs to D. Alvaro Noguera Gimenez. The Gimenez family bought the building which houses the museum around the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The building has an event space and apartments which the family rents to keep the museum afloat. Pretty smart!

The Tin Soldier Museum contains reportedly over 1 million tin and toy soldiers, though just 80,000 are on display. Here are some highlights from the collection:

General Franco
The Wedding of Queen Isabella

Specially-commissioned watercolor backdrops

Epic war scene between Spain and Austria

Nude toys in the overthrow of a Roman temple (there were more NSFW ones, but I’m “keeping it Disney”)

American tin soldiers

Hussein, Kennedy and Castro

Teeny tiny fashion

Special exhibit on India

Case after case of tin soldiers

The unassuming building in which the museum resides

Read more about Valencia here!

[Photos by Annie Scott.]

This trip was sponsored by Cool Capitals and Tourismo Valencia, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.

Civil War secret message decoded

by Sean McLachlan on


A coded message sent to the beleaguered Confederate commander of Vicksburg has been cracked, the BBC reports.

The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond has had the message in its collection for more than a century. It had never tried to decipher the code of seemingly random letters until this year, when they sent it off to retired CIA codebreaker David Gaddy. While Gaddy is trained to break sophisticated modern codes, this early cipher was still tough enough to take him several weeks.

It turns out the message was sent to Confederate General John Pemberton telling him he wouldn’t be getting any reinforcements. The city was the key to the Mississippi River and had been under siege by Union forces for months. The message was dated 4 July 1863, the same day Pemberton surrendered. The bad news was probably the last straw. With his men short of food and munitions and the city in ruins, Pemberton’s last hope was getting reinforcements.

The fall of Vicksburg opened up the Mississippi River to Union gunboats and cut the Confederacy in half. It was one of the turning points of the Civil War.

[Photo courtesy U.S. Army]

American-Muslim group urges Palestinians to visit Holocaust Museum

by Sean McLachlan on


The Islamic Society of North America is defying Hamas and urging Palestinian youths to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., the Jewish news service JTA reports.

A group of A-students from the Gaza Strip are to visit the nation’s capital on a UN-sponsored educational visit. Their tour is to include the Holocaust Museum, but Hamas, which runs the Palestinian Authority, has criticized the plan. A Hamas spokesman says Palestinian children suffer enough persecution and can’t deal with learning about other people’s suffering.

That prompted the Islamic Society of North America to make a public statement endorsing the plan, saying they’ve taken Muslims there before and that it has had a positive effect on Muslim-Jewish relations.

I’ve never seen this museum, but I have been to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Although I went nearly twenty years ago, I have a very clear memory of speaking to a German student who I met there. Her reason for going? “I feel it’s my responsibility as a German.” She became a friend, and although she often criticizes Israel’s policies, she’s fully aware of what happened in the biggest crime of the twentieth century.

Who knows? Perhaps this will encourage Jewish-American children to visit Palestinian high schools, or Iranian and American kids to set up an exchange program, or North and South Korea to create a communal youth group.

Hmmm. . .is that too much to hope for this holiday season?

[Image courtesy user AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons]

The Kennedy Space Center outlines new plans for a space shuttle exhibit

by Joel Bullock on




With the NASA’s Space Shuttle Program coming to a close, there are a number of museums scrambling to get a retired shuttle. In hopes to be selected, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has designed new plans for their Visitor Complex. The centerpiece of the plans is a $100 million retired space shuttle exhibit. The overarching goal of the plans is to show guests the connection between NASA and their everyday lives.

The initial design concepts include viewing the space shuttle in flight and showing how it worked in space. In addition to the 64,000 square-foot space shuttle exhibit, the plans also include immersive thematic zones, other interactive exhibits, and live presentations by astronauts and workers.

Seeing the test shuttle, known as the Enterprise, was the highlight of my visit to the Udvar-Hazy annex of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Even after almost thirty years in operation, space shuttles are still a marvel to look at up close. I would have to believe that the Kennedy Space Center has the inside track in acquiring a shuttle. As Bill Moore, Chief Operating Officer of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex said, “Kennedy Space Center is home to the space shuttle; all of the 132 missions have launched from here.” I can’t think of a stronger case for a museum to become a home to one of the three shuttles.