Trip to Tarragona

Hello! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend!

Valentine's Day is not really celebrated here. It was even hard to remember what day it was, no one dressed in red and there were hardly any decorations or anything. In this region of Spain, Catalunya, the celebrate el Dia de San Jordi in the 23rd of April. It is like Valentine's day, people walk around in the streets and men give roses to women, women give books to men. Apparently it is very beautiful, especially when there is nice weather, so I'm looking forward to that.

I seem to be about a week behind on my posts...last Saturday my roommates, some friends and I spent the day in Tarragona. Tarragona is a city about 1 hour down the coast from Barcelona. It holds some of the most well preserved Roman ruins in Spain and at one time was the capital city of the Roman Empire. The trip was great! We got up early and headed to the train station, my first time on a train!

We arrived in Tarragona around 10:30 and went to a small cafe for some coffee while we waited for our friends to arrive. The city was a lot different than Barcelona, a lot smaller and slower paced. Once everyone arrived we headed toward a famous cathedral. On the way we stopped inside a beautiful Catholic church. The woman working in the church was very friendly and excited to show us all of the altars dedicated to different saints. We continued into the city, the streets were really neat. They were all very narrow and the apartment buildings were all different and very interesting.

We finally made it to the cathedral. It was under construction, so a lot was covered by scaffolding. The inside was remarkable. All around the main church area were big private altars dedicated to different saints. At the front was the main altar that we were able to walk on and behind. The architecture was amazing. It was one of those places where once you enter, you feel as if you cannot break the silence. Everyone just walked around on their own, it was a very impressive atmosphere.

After the cathedral, we headed toward the Roman ruins, which were all very centrally located, and took a tour. It was really neat so see remnants of columns and tombs and towers. We climbed to the top and went onto the roof.

It was another VERY windy day. From the top, we were able to see the whole city. The sun came out and it was a great view.

To one side, we saw the city, the cathedral and the mountains and to the other was the beach and the ruins of an amphitheater. Just below us we saw more ruins of some tunnels that we were later able to walk through.

After exploring the rest of the ruins we headed to lunch in a restaurant called Les Vaultes. The cafe was actually built into the ruins of the Roman Circus. We were seated inside a Roman vault, it was very cool. The restaurant offered a DELICIOUS menu del dia. Quite possibly the best meal that I've had so far here. We started with a plate of olives (which are grown here) and bread. We had bottles of water and very good white wine and red wine to share at the table. Our first plate was ensalada de pescado. It was a salad with fresh cod, salmon, shrimp and some other types of seafood. Next, I had veal with a creamy garlic sauce, mushrooms and patatas fritas (french fries.) It was very very very good. We finished with crema de Catalunya, a traditional Catalan dessert very similar to creme brulee.

Needless to say, the meal was well worth it!

After lunch, we headed toward the coast to see the amphitheater. We also watched the beach for awhile until it was time to head back to the station to catch the train. The coast was beautiful as the sun was starting to set. I think I'm going to have to come back to Spain during the summer when it is warm enough to layout on the beaches!

It was such a long, eventful day that we all fell asleep on the train ride home (and I'm sure the wine didn't help!) We had a really wonderful time!