Tarragona

This past Saturday, I took a day trip with a small group from my program to the city of Tarragona. It's a short train ride away, and boasts a rich Roman and medieval history. It used to be called Tarraco, and was the capital of the Roman province of Tarraconense, the largest province on the Iberian peninsula at the time. It even served as the capital of the entire Roman empire for a short time during Caesar Augustus' reign.

After a quick cafe con leche at the train station, we set off to go see the amphitheater ruins. It was built right off the sea, so from inside we had a beautiful view of the Mediterranean. We were treated to an impromptu showing of a group of castelleros (human tower), who were filming inside the amphitheater, so that was a nice surprise.

              Castelleros in the amphitheater

We then went to an old Roman government building that was also used as a prison during Franco's time. We climbed up a super small, narrow staircase to get to the roof, where we had a great view of the entire city. 

                        Tarragona

After that, we headed over to the Roman circus, which had a lot of the tunnels (that would have led to the track) preserved. It was impressionable to picture how big this thing was--our tour guide said it usually took 10 minutes per lap! Also, he said that the chariot races were actually more dangerous and had more fatalities than the gladiator fights in the amphitheater. We then made our way to see the medieval cathedral (it's almost a shame that no cathedral can compare, so far, to the one in Toledo). After that, we walked around the old Roman muralla (wall) that used to surround the city. There's a great little path going around there, and it was amazing to see a structure that has been around for thousands of years (it was built around the same time as the Great Wall of China!). 

                            Roman Muralla 

Overall, a good day trip with a lot of interesting history. Also cool because I had learned a lot of the information in my Barcelona: The City & its History class, so it was good to get a visual to go with the information I've been learning. 

Upcoming trips: AMSTERDAM this coming weekend, DUBLIN the weekend after that, and then ATHENS, SANTORINI, ROMA & either NAPLES or FLORENCE (any suggestions between going north or south of Roma?) for SB'10. Really looking forward to these trips :)

Ciao!