About 100 kilometers south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast sits Tarragona, a city of 135,000 people well known for its Roman ruins. Tarragona, or “Tarraco”, was captured by the Romans in 217 or 218 B.C. and became an important strategic hub, given its location on the Mediterranean; the first Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus (62 B.C. – 14 A.D.), lived here at one point.
Tarragona is the perfect cultural day trip from Barcelona, a one hour train ride, with the station in a very central location from which we could access the old city. This is also an ideal scooter town. Instead of, “Max, Ella, Maggie—guess what, we are going to walk around the historic city of Tarragona today,” it was, “Max, Ella, Maggie—let’s go scootering!”
MEM (with scooters)
Stepping off the train at the Tarragona station, which sits on valuable beachfront real estate, we walked about 10 minutes up the coast to the Roman Amphitheater, built in the second century A.D.; as a point of reference, the Colosseum in Rome was opened in 80 A.D.
From the amphitheater there is a nice walking loop, probably a couple of miles in length, which takes you by a select group of Tarragona’s famous monuments. Here are MEM in front of the city’s 12th century gothic cathedral.
The walls surrounding the old city, “Murallas de Tarragona”, were built in the late 3rd century and early 2nd century B.C. Part of the walls are still standing, and Maggie is doing her part to protect what is left.
Our walking loop left us at the end of Rambla Nova, also simply known as “La Rambla”, overlooking the sea. The plan had been to finish our tour here, at what we heard was an excellent Italian restaurant on the south side of La Rambla. Finding the restaurant, we quickly recognized that La Tagliatella is a chain with over 150 outlets. Still, the pasta was tasty, and lunch may be the first thought that comes to mind (and likely the “best part of the day”) if we were to ask MEM about Tarragona.
