A day in Tarragona

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Rosemary rang at 6.00am this morning to let Bernie know that the email has now been sent???!! We thought that was what she rang to tell us at about 4.00am on Tuesday morning?! Anyway, when Bernie logged on he found that he does now have the link. Now he just has to make the time to do the test before the end of the week. It is a nuisance really as it would have suited us for him to do the test yesterday morning while we were killing time waiting for the welcome session! Ah well, c’est la vie, I am sure we can find an hour before the end of the week for Bernie to do the test.

After breakfast we caught the bus into Tarragona to have a look at the Roman ruins. When we arrived we finally managed to buy a multi pass bus ticket which will make it easier to catch the bus as we won’t have to worry about having change or small notes to buy our fare!

After buying our bus pass we headed for The City Forum where we bought a combined ticket that would gain us entry to six sites for €10 instead of €3 each. The City Forum was the political centre of the Roman colony of Tarraco during the second century BC.

From The City Forum we walked to the Theatre. This was a fairly derelict site that gave the impression of having being abandoned to become a rubbish dump after being discovered!! There was evidence that buildings built over the theatre have been demolished to uncover the old Roman site, but it has certainly not been developed for tourists … or anyone else for that matter!

After the Theatre we walked down to the train station as we will probably catch the bus to Tarragona and the train to Barcelona later in the week. We thought that it might be prudent to familiarize ourselves with the train station where we will have to catch the train to Barcelona.

From the station we hiked around to The Amphitheatre which was built outside the walls near the sea between the third quarter of the 1st century AD and the beginning of the 2nd century AD. For a while we thought that we might not be able to gain access to this site as there was some serious earthmoving work going on. However, there was a temporary alternative access via the Miracle Stairs by which we were able to access most of The Amphitheatre. Within the arena we were also able to see the ruins of a Christian Basilica (6th century) and the Romanesque church of the Blessed Virgin of the Miracle (12th century) both of which we built using stone blocks from the amphitheatre!!

After The Amphitheatre we strolled along the Passeig de las Palares to view the Mediterranean from the very end of the Ramblas Nova. From Ramblas Nova we made our way to Rambla Vella where our next stop was The Circus Praetorium which was just a very small part of a grand complex of public buildings that was constructed on the highest hill in Tarraco in about 73 AD. The part that has been preserved is quite large, but represents only a very small area of the entire complex which has been subsumed by modern day Tarragano which is built on, over and around the Roman foundations.

By this stage we were in need of some lunch so we stopped for a bite to eat in the Place Del Rei. Today we ate bocadillos - which are pretty much like baguettes - filled with ham and cheese. Of course Bernie washed his down with a large beer while I had a bottle of water; no gas! I keep forgetting that mineral water here is not still or sparkling, it is with gas or without gas!

With some difficulty we finally tracked down the next site on our combined ticket, The Canals House. Our map suggested that it was on Passeig de Sant Antoni so we passed through St Anthony’s Gate (Portal de Sant Antoni) before we started looking for it. When we could not find the house on the outside of the wall we decided to back track to Granada Street where we found it at number 11. It was a very understated building anyway and, at the moment, it is obscured with scaffolding so it is little wonder that we missed it.


As we were having our tickets stamped the guy on the desk eyed me off (well below my eye level) and asked if he could rub me??!! I had no idea what he was talking about so I just gave him a vague smile. As we headed off to the staircase it occurred to me that he had been looking at the Canon camera hanging around my neck and he wanted to rob me not rub me!!

The house that we viewed today is a noble home that was built in the 18th century. The house is basically built into and onto the old Roman walls with balconies that were opened in the Roman walls so that views of the sea could be enjoyed!!

From the relatively modern Casa Canals we delved back into history with a stop at the façade of The Cathedral of Santa Tecla and Santa Maria which was consecrated in 1331 after being constructed during the 12th and 13th centuries. Nearby we viewed the Gothic arches in Merceria Street that exemplify Mediaeval Tarragona.

Our next stop was Castellarnau House one of the noble residences in Cavallers Street where some of Tarragona’s most important families built their houses. The casa dates back to the 15th century and had several owners before Charles de Castellarnau bought it in 1764. The building became municipal property in 1954 and was opened to the public in 1977 as a Romantic period museum following considerable renovations. While we were looking around Casa Castellarnau one of the staff presented us with a lovely guide book on ‘Tarragona the City’ … for free!! We have no idea why and we certainly would not have bought it (we don’t buy guide books anymore because they add too much weight to our luggage and we can look up anything we want to be reminded of on the Internet), but it would have been churlish to refuse the gift!!??

We made a brief visit to the scale model of the Roman city, which really helped to put some of the things we had been seeing during the day in context, before taking The Archeological Promenade along the preserved Roman wall of ancient Tarroco that still surrounds the historical part of the city known as the ‘Part Alto’ (Upper Part). In Roman times the wall was some four and a half kilometers long. Just over one kilometer remains … and we walked all of it!!

And then we walked all the way back again to The Portal del Poser before meandering our way back down to the Rambla Nova. We walked along the Rambla Nova back to the bus station where we were just in time to catch the 18.00 bus back to La Pineda!!

By the time we had a quick shower we were just in time to meet Kath and Albert for dinner at 7.30pm. The staff here are very quick to clear the tables. In fact, they are so quick that when we all went to find some dessert at the same time they cleared our table … including the last few mouthfuls of wine that all of us had left in our glasses!! When we arrived back at our table the waiter was very apologetic and brought us fresh glasses and a new bottle of house red to make it up to us!! That makes two free bottles of wine in two nights!!

England is playing in a World Cup qualifier tonight so the others have gone off to find an English bar to watch the game. I still find watching football (of the round ball variety) about as interesting as watching paint dry so I have stayed back in our room to catch up on the diary for the balance of yesterday and today. Besides which we walked around all day today and I am tired! Now, if I had sorted out that pedometer, today I would have amassed a total to be proud of I’m sure!??!

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Comments

[janet]

great photos
Sounds like an interesting area to visit, good for long walks exploring the local sights. Not far away from Barcelona too. Hope you continue to enjoy your spanish experience