Spain

Tarragona

~ donquioaty ~ 1 Comment

DonQui Oaty is rather sad to be leaving Tarragona. He really liked it there and vows to come back soon.
What was so good about it? Well lots really

Ampitheatre
The old city is a Roman walled town. Now for some uncountable reason DonQui rather likes old stuff – particularly Roman old stuff. Tarragona has lots of it with walls, amphitheatre, circus, underground passages and an OK museum.

cathedral

A pretty impressive Cathedral

donkey
It is compact, easily walkable and has lots of good restaurants, bars and cafés, all of which are in trotting distance from one another. Donkeys are welcome.

forum
The old Roman forum is great for tapas in the evening or a coffee in the morning. DonQui tried out many of the places surrounding the forum but would have had to stay another week to try all of them. He rather liked the local Vermut (Vermouth) served neat, in a tumbler full of ice, garnished with olives and a slice of orange. He was also quite taken with the local Montsant wine.

tower2

The humans there do lots of fun thinks like building towers…

dragon

dressing up as dragons…

drums

banging on drums and making lots of noise…

dance

and dancing in the street.

beach
DonQui rather liked the beaches. The Costa Daurada, or Gold Coast, stretches for 15kms to the north of Tarragona. The beaches are all soft golden sand and barely a Brit, German or Russian tourist in sight. DonQui tried out Platja del Miracle in Tarragona which was OK, the 3km long Platja Llarga which was great and the smaller Platja del Móra about 10kms out of town which was also great.

apt view

What was not so good?
Parking was impossible. Not that DonQui needed a car in Tarragona. However, it did make it easier to get to the out of town beaches. In most cases it would be better to take a train from Barcelona but be aware that the fast train from Barcelona stops at Tarragona Camp which is 20 minutes out of town. The stopping train goes into the town proper.

Useful links

The Tarragona blog

Tarragona beaches

Ale and Hops

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Ale

DonQui’s step quickened as he approached the shop in Tarragona. This is my sort of place, he thought.…an emporium dedicated to ale, hops and the joy of the fermented grain. Maybe it would be as good as the Adnams store in Southwold — one of his favourite shops anywhere.

Ale hop full

He couldn’t work out what the cow was doing in the entrance, nor why so many women seemed to be heading inside, leaving their men to wait impatiently on the street. In his experience men seemed to get much more excited about beer than women. Perhaps in Spain things were different.

Imagine DonQui’s huge disappointment when he went inside and there was not a single bottle of beer to be seen—just lots of girly Stuff and nothing of any use to DonQui at all.

dejected

Duchess was happy though. She bought Stuff while DonQui sat on a step opposite feeling more than a little dejected and wondering when beer time would come around again.