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My travel in Europe:
From Alicante to Barcelona, Spain 2023

Content:

Day 12, Peniscola to Tarragona

We wake up at 7 am and prepare us for this day's travel. Down to the breakfast room and get our breakfast and then check out.

Peniscola:

This will be exciting, is there a bus waiting for us ? Follow what we think is the remain of an old moat and after 8 minutes we are at the bus station, 15 minutes before depart.

When we arrived at the bus station no one else was here. 10 minutes before the depart one more man arrived. It looks like he was used to take this bus. But we waited and waited, 5 minutes late the bus arrived. We could pay the tickets with cash, the bus driver told us that there is a bus change at Aldea. Then he started the bus and we could relax a bit.

Benicarlo:

The bus leave the high way and we could see on the sign that we are on the way to Benicarlo. That's where we changed from train to bus two days ago.

Aldea:

Bus change at Aldea, out in the nowhere. The bus driver told us several times that the next bus will come in 5 minutes. It felt a little bit alone out here while we waiting for the bus. But at last it came and we could continue our travel to Tarragona.

Tarragona:

The bus stopped in the center of Tarragona at the park Placa Imperial Tarraco. From here we have about a ten minutes walk to old town and our room for the night. Check in time was at 2 pm but I send them a message that we were already her at 12 am. I got the answer that the room was already waiting for us, great service !

Today's bus travel was the longest of these 12 days we have been out on travel, 13.5 km and with one change at Aldea.

Street Avenu d'Estanislau Figueres:

We follow one of the streets with less traffic, Avenu d'Estanislau Figueres. When this street change to Rabla Vella we have this house, it has a painting on its wall. Later we understood that it was the aqueduct that transported water to Tarragona during the Roman era. There are some ruins of this aqueduct, but too long walk to that place.

Hostal Noria, our stay for one night. We was not sure about a hostal, but we found it to be very good. A family business hotel.

The hostel had a cafeteria too, breakfast was not included but we could buy breakfast tomorrow morning at this place.

Placa de la Font:

From our balcony we have a view over this square, Placa de la Font, could it be better ? Here are many restaurants where we can eat later.

Circ Roma de Tarragona:

This is for us the big reason to visit Tarragona. Roman ruins, this is a circus were they had chariot races (horse races). A museum ticket cost 5 Euro each but we bought a multi ticket for 15 Euro, with that we could visit at least five different places. The circus was big, from one end of the town to the other. The arcs we see here, there were 56 of them from the beginning.

Torre de les Monges:

The nuns' tower, the defense wall was built later, maybe the 12th century.

A stair take us to the upper level, the lower stones in the stair case looks must be from the Roman era. The hole to the right, the door hinge.

Here you can see a preserved part of the stand and in the background how it once looked. This circus arena is 2000 years old !

The ruins continue into the old town.

More information about a Roman circus (general):

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Roman circus (Roman circus, Wikipedia)

Up from here we have a view over the ocean. We will visit that area later today, that's where the Roman Arena is.

Here we see how the ruins continue into next block, the street to the right, that's where we live. The square we had in front of our room is one part of this Roman Circus.

All under the stand it's a tunnel, very long. Today there are streets and buildings above in some places.

Several openings to the arena. It was possible to have 25'000 people here during a charity race, the one in Rome take 120'000 people as a comparison.

Bird view over old town of Tarragona.

In one of the tunnels they had an exhibition with pillars with Roman inscriptions, it's written in Latin.

We found this model of the old town of Tarragona. It's from later time than the Roman era, but the Roman Circus is still there, see how big it was. Our hotel is placed at the center of this arena. If you have seen the movie Ben Hur you know what they did here, chariot races.

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Ruta per la Tarragona Medieval:

The museum continue into another building, it's a medieval church.

We have walked many stairs to come to this terrace. From here we could see a stair, still there is one more terrace even higher up.

Up on the top terrace, the white building in front of us is, Parròquia de la Santíssima Trinitat. Tarragona Cathedral to the left.

Fortí de Sant Jordi:

Out on the headland is the more modern defense fort, Fortí de Sant Jordi.

Take the stairs back to ground level, found an old pillar, it must be from the Roman era.

Look how they have rebuilt the arc, the stones just hanging in the air up there.

Escultura a Octavi Cèsar August:

After we left the museum we look back to the statue of the Roman empire, Octavia Cesar August, born 63 bc, died 14 ad. He was the founder of the Roman Empire.

More information about Augustus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Augustus (Augustus, Wikipedia)

There are a lot of interesting things to read about him.

The nun's tower from outside and the defense walls.

More information about Tarragona:

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Tarragona (Tarragona, Wikipedia)

Amfiteatre de Tarragona:

The tickets we bought are valid for a year, so no need to stress about that. But tomorrow we are going home and to have a look at the Roman Arena is a must, today.

In the 12th century they built a church on top of the ruins of the Amphitheatre. Even so a big part of the Amphitheatre is preserved.

Església de Santa Maria del Miracle:

Even the church is a ruin today, demolished 1915. It was a grave yard here when it was in use and later.

We couldn't visit all areas of the Amphitheatre, several areas were cordoned off. Maybe it was a racial risk, or ?

More information about Tarragona Amphitheatre:

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Tarragona Amphitheatre (Tarragona Amphitheatre, Wikipedia)

Rambla Nova:

After the Amphitheatre we walk through the Balco del Mediterrani, not as impressive as the one we saw at Benidorm. Then we went up on the street Rambla Nova, the main street of Tarragona. We looked for an ATM machine, some of them has free withdraw. We have to test which, often the smaller local banks. We try to use the credit card as much as possible, but sometimes there is a need for cash, for the buses, some restaurants etc.

Tarragona City Hall:

We walked a lot of blocks without finding any food that attracted us. After a while we came back to where we live at the square Placa de la Font. The multi museum ticket we bought is also valid for the city hall in front of us, but we never visited it.

It ended up that we ate at our hotel. They have delicious toasts and with a glass of Sangria we had a great time. Our hotel is the orange building in the background to the right.

Back to our room for a rest and enjoying the great view we had from the balcony, actually we had two balconies.

Roman Circus:

All along the circus arena there are stands, some of them still here today. The tunnel we walked in earlier is inside here.

Street Baixada de la Misericordia:

We took this street to see the ruins from above, but it was more interesting from the lower level and we walked back again.

Bird view over old town of Tarragona, it's easy to see these stands and walls on the satellite photo above.

It's the Northern stands that are so well preserved. Just imaging how much work it must have been to built these.

A water bucket, or ? For human or goats, cows and horses ?

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Placa dels Sedassos:

Here they have an open air theatre, they use the stands from the circus arena behind me.

At a lot of places we could see how they have incorporated the stands and walls in later buildings.

At the end of old town where the circus arena ended is the city wall.

There are more ruins after old defense walls at other streets too.

Portal del Roser:

The West city gate, Portal del Roser, not far from here to the North (right) the aqueduct connected to the city. Without water, no town.

Casa Museu Castellarnau:

In this area there is a palace where our ticket is valid for a visit, the street is, Carrer dels Cavallers.

The palace is fabulous, exact how I want my home to be.

After the palace we visited we walk back to the defense wall, follow the street Baixada del Roser upwards.

Catedral Basílica Metropolitana i Primada de Santa Tecla de Tarragona:

The sun is going down, the town lits up and this beautiful cathedral appear in front of us. I wish we had time to walk on the other side of the wall too. There are also a lot of museums that could have been interesting to visit.

More information about Tarragona Cathedral:

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Tarragona Cathedral (Tarragona Cathedral, Wikipedia)

Universitat Rovira i Virgili:

They even have a University in this small old town.

After we now had walking on the inside of the defense wall we go to the outside through a hole in the wall. It's on the Northeast side.

St. Anthony Gate:

A view through the gate into the Square Placa de Sant Antoni.

From this terrace we can see the sea and far away down there is the fort, Fortí de Sant Jordi. But look, all these stairs, no, not today, we walk back into the old town.