A nation is born: As the United States celebrated its 250th anniversary, we found ourselves looking at the garden wall in our Spanish shrubbery and smiling.

On the other side of that wall is a convent that was built in 1760, likely on the foundations of a preceding building.

Which means…

Our garden wall is far older than the United States of America. It also made us realize how easy it is to take history for granted when you live in Spain.

We stroll past a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre still in use on our way to buy bread.

We live as they did 4,000 years ago

We have coffee in squares that have been gathering people for many centuries, in Cartagena and Seville, Cordoba and Cadiz; people dined for up to 4,000 years.

We admire ancient castles, 2,000-year-old aqueducts for irrigation and each city’s water supplies; we pray in medieval churches and stroll past city walls without always stopping to think,

‘This has been standing here longer than many entire countries have existed.”

Spain isn’t just old.

It’s layered. The Romans were citizens of Spain for 600 years (200BC to 400AD). The Roman presence in Spain began 200 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

Many civilisations preceded them, and every day we pass the proof without thinking about it.

They left roads, some of which we still use. We use bridges to commute and aqueducts to irrigate our fields that still amaze engineers today.

The Visigoths

The Visigoths shaped the kingdom that followed the fall of Rome. Nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule transformed architecture, agriculture, science and language.

They left behind everything from the Alhambra to thousands of everyday Spanish words still in use today. Still in use are irrigation systems created by the Moors.

That was long before the Catholic Monarchs united much of the peninsula and opened a completely new chapter of history.

Every civilization left something behind.

Sometimes it’s a monument. Sometimes it’s a recipe. Sometimes it’s a word you say every day without even realizing where it came from.

Spain

That’s one of the things we love most about living here. Spain isn’t a country you simply visit. It’s one you slowly uncover, layer by layer.

And every now and then, history quietly reminds you it’s there.

Sometimes all it takes is looking at the wall outside your window and realising it’s been standing there since before an entire nation was born.

When you live in Spain, you don’t just live with history. You live inside it. Send us your comments

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