"Roman" around Tarragona

It's amazing to me how many Roman structures and artifacts still exist in their old empire. Last year we saw the perfect little coliseum in Nimes,  France and the year before the aqueduct in Segovia, Spain and many others in the last few years. We think a structure is old when it's less than a hundred, but the Roman works have in many cases lasted 2 thousand years. It's not just age and decay either, there has also been mass destruction from countless wars. And yet they still stand.

Which brings us to Tarragona. I wanted to stop here because they have several ancient Roman structures still around. I had to get up at the ridiculous time of 7 am in order to catch a bus into Tarragona. Where I'm staying at the beach is a a few miles from town and I'm not about to try to park the campervan in a city. I am normally awake well before 7, so it shouldn't be a big deal to get up at 7...but it is! I don't know why.  Anyway, it turned out that it was a holiday and the buses were barely running, so I didn't have many options. Somehow I managed to get ready and find the appropriate bus stop. Of course it helped that once I found what I thought was the right bus stop, someone had written in giant letters across it, "This is not the bus to Tarragona! You want the one behind the hotel!"  Normally I'm not a huge fan of graffiti,  but in this case....

I watched my Google maps and got off right across the street from the Roman Amphitheater,  they've built a pretty park in front of it. You can actually see a lot of it from the hill outside, but I have to go in and soak up the history. It wasn't open yet (holiday schedule!), so I sat and waited. Ok, it was only 10 minutes. The ticket seller / taker / security man was promptly on time and next thing you know I'm sitting all alone in the amphitheater imagining some bloody spectacle or another. The Roman's picked a great spot for it too, right above the sea, so it has a great view of that too. After wandering around a while,  I headed off to see the rest.

There are some pretty big buildings still surviving, in one somewhat ruined shape or another.They had mini versions of the Forum, the Circus, and several of the walls are still standing. I liked that houses are actually built right into the walls in some spots.  Several of the old gates in the wall are still intact, and I stopped for coffee across from one. There were only a few customers and I settled in for a little rest. Two guys, who had just finished breakfast, picked up instruments I hadn't noticed, leaned up against the wall, played a couple of songs, sat back down and finished their coffee. This just does not happen in my neck of the woods.

I found a few more little leftover Roman things and especially liked the fountain. Then I was off to the Cathedral.  I never miss a big church and this one is big. It has an impressive front as you climb the stairs and the view gets better and better, as you can see more of the detail on every step up. Now I'm going to give my two cents about churches that charge admission. First, I don't like it. This one was 5 Euros. Second, if they are going to charge admission, they need to stop bugging you for donations. I think that's what I just did to get in the place! Anyway, thats just me I guess.

I walked in, turned to see the glorious Cathedral, and was met with a vast expanse of white, hardly any adornment at all. I just about asked for my money back. Instead I trudged on, hoping to get my money's worth. As it turned out, this Cathedral did it different. Instead of a massively decorated main church, they put all the glitz and gold into their side chapels. And they put a whole lot of it. Each of the chapels was completely different. I might even have said a little prayer asking forgiveness for wanting my money back. The most interesting thing in the main chapel was the holy water font in the front of the church...check the pic...strange, to say the least, but also cool.

For the next site I had to make another bus journey to the north of the city to see their aqueduct.  This aqueduct has a feature that I really liked, you can walk across it. Not like those stuffy caretakers of the aqueduct in Segovia who only let you look. It's beautiful, remarkable in its simplicity and I could stare at it all day. Why can't we build things so pretty to do everyday tasks like move water? After staring at the aqueduct for a while, and walking across it twice, I noticed a tiny sign pointing off in another direction for Mas dels Arcs.  An angel? I hadn't heard  of this, so off I went, which turned into somewhat of a hike. When I finally found it I had two thoughts. One, that is so beautiful. Two, why is no one taking care of it? Again I find a beautiful thing with graffiti sprayed on it and no care being taken in it or its surroundings.  Do they have so many beautiful things that it doesn't rank high enough? I looked on Google and discovered it was a memorial to honor the dead in the Peninsula Wars, part of the Napoleonic  Wars. That makes it even worse of a disgrace in my book. I was happy to get to see it.