Tarragona

So late Friday night Sam, Goncalo, and myself decided that we were going to take a day trip down to Tarragona last Saturday. We didn’t want to get up too early but we didn’t want to get up to late because there is a lot to see in Tarragona and because it starts getting dark so early now you have to get up early to see stuff! We made it a goal to leave by 9:30. We left more or less on time and didn’t really have a plan or an idea about what we were going to do. I knew how to get there but I didn’t really know too much about Tarragona other than it has nice beaches and well preserved Roman ruins. We get to the train station and I think that we had just missed a train going in that direction because 2 run per hour and we had to wait almost 45 minutes for the next train after we arrived. In the meantime, we occupied our time in the train station’s cafeteria. Goncalo bought some sandwiches for later and Sam and I had croissants. We caught the train around 11 I think and it took about an hour to get to Tarragona. The train ride down was beautiful because it was right on the beach and the beaches outside of Barcelona are real beaches and they are beautiful! After we arrived we weren’t really sure what to do! We decided to go left out of the train station, which we would soon come to find out, was the wrong way, we should have taken a right! Lol That’s ok, we took a nice walk down the port, stopped at the maritime museum and got a city map and navigated our way to the center city. This is about the same time that we started getting hungry and Goncalo realized that he had forgotten his sandwiches on the train!

Tarragona is a smaller town so it was easy to walk around. We made our way to the main Ramblas of the city where we ran into this really cool statue/monument. As you have read in my early posts, human castles are part of an important tradition here in Spain, especially in Catalunya, and here in Tarragona they actually made a human castle into a statue. It looked so life like that it was scary! It was very cool; you just have to see the pictures! We made our way down the rest of the Ramblas to the sea where the view was amazing! We took some pictures and then we spotted the ancient ruins of the Roman Coliseum. It’s actually very well preserved and it’s right on the beach so it makes for a great photo. We walked down, took some pictures and decided to grab lunch before heading to the famous aqueducts. We ate at a nice café where we each had different paella. Sam had seafood, I had vegetable, and Goncalo tried the arroz negra (black rice, this is when they use the squid ink and it makes it black) mine was really good, the service was slow but that’s normal.

After lunch we decided to make our way to the aqueducts. This is where the real adventure begins…I’m assuming everyone knows how to use a map, well as you know, most maps have the sights marked, especially touristic maps, and this one used numbers like most maps. Well 22 was the number of the aqueducts on the map but it was partially cut off at the top so we weren’t entirely sure where they were located. So, we start walking in the general direction that we think we are supposed to go in. We were definitely going the right way according to the street names and I’m pretty much an expert now at navigating my way through these European cities but then, the sidewalk starts to taper off and all of a sudden we are in the middle of a major highway (the highway between Barcelona and Valencia)! So we decided to stop and ask for directions. The people we asked told us that it was too far to walk to and that we should take the bus. So, we then went about trying to find the bus. We waited at one bus stop for about 15 minutes and then decided that we would try another one. We finally got onto a bus, which was difficult. Thank goodness we had Goncalo with us to speak Spanish because if not then we probably would have gotten onto the wrong bus! We told him that we were trying to go to the aqueducts and when he pulled off along side of the highway and signaled for us to get off I think we were all a little confused! Turns out, the bus stop for the aqueducts is in reality, on the side of the highway! Very dangerous. So we finally made it there and we proceed to walk towards the sign that says “Roman Aqueducts.” They are actually located within a park so we analyzed the map and just started walking towards what we thought was the right direction, again. We made it to the aqueducts and they were amazing. I had no idea that they were going to be so huge! I thought it would just be some arches in ruins but almost the entire thing was still in tact! It was definitely a sight to see and worth the trip. After we took some photos I think that we made a wrong turn. We thought we were following the right path because we kept seeing signs like their was a path marked but somehow we got lost. We were walking and Goncalo stops because he saw some thing attached to this bush, almost like a hair clip. We have no idea what it was but we’re calling it the “Catalan symbol” haha we took a picture and moved on! We stumbled upon some more ancient ruins in what used to be a garden for some member of the royal family. We walked a little bit further before we admitted to being lost! Lol We started seeing bullet casings on the ground and then we saw some yellow signs in Spanish that symbolized a gas line and we started to walk down this huge hill and then we saw signs in Spanish that said, “hunting grounds.” So, I guess we could have been shot! We had wondered from the park with the aqueducts to a hunting ground! I’m not sure how it makes any sense to put a park next to a hunting area but we all agreed that it seems like a very “Spanish” thing to do! So after we made our way out of the woods we were still lost. Somehow we had ended up next to the highway again but this time the bus stop was nowhere in sight! In order to get back to what we thought was the path we had to walk through a field that had been tilled up like they were going to plant something in it, maybe corn? (Picture an empty fresh, dirt field the size of 2 football fields) As we started to walk through this field, again we are probably lucky that we didn’t get shot, the dirt was so soft that we were practically sinking in it. Sam and Goncalo had the bright idea to run, full speed across the field. I tried this but it actually made it worse and I had so much dirt in my shoes by the time that I had gotten to the other side that it was disgusting! We made it back to a path finally and then it was like the shining light at the end of the tunnel, we were back at the entrance! We had to wait along side the highway for the bus for about 30 minutes. The sun was going down and it was starting to get cold and at this point we were pretty tired. After a long bus ride with stinky sweaty people we made it back to the civilization! We decided to walk through the old city and then go to this point on the beach to get a picture and then we would leave. Plus we were starting to get hungry again. We bought a ticket to see the old Roman city walls. It was dusk outside but the walls were beautiful at night! The lights on the walls made for some excellent pictures. We were the only people there so we took tons of pictures and played around. Sam picked an orange off of an orange tree, we thought it was lime though because it was small and green but, after being in my purse for a while we immediately knew it was an orange. When we were at the Castle of Montjuic he also picked a piece of fruit off of a tree, we think that one was a lime though. So, it has now become mandatory for him to collect a piece of fruit off of a tree every time we visit ancient ruins! After the Roman city we headed down to this point on the beach called playa de miracle. We thought that it would be nice to see the city at night from this point. It took us a while to walk there but we walked back to the train station on the beach and the weather was so nice that we only needed a light jacket, so I didn't mind. I think the high was around 73 or 74 during the day, perfect temperature. We made it to the station on time for the 8:40 train so we grabbed a sandwich and took a nap on the train on the way back. Overall it was a great day, it was quite the adventure, of course, traveling with two men I didn’t expect any less! One thing is for sure, after we got home it wasn’t long before we were passed out! We were exhausted!! Great day trip though, I'd highly recommend it although next time I'd prefer to do some more research on the area I plan to visit. BUT, sometimes those Sporadic trips are the best ones! ;)