Tarragona; Friday, 06 February, 2026

I had a really good nights sleep so was up and ready to go not long after Breakfast had started, which meant that I was able to have a relaxed breakfast in the hotel restaurant as it didn’t look particularly large compared to the size of the hotel.

After breakfast I headed out of the hotel and had a wander around the area close by, including taking in the end of the Rambla Nova, the historic shopping street of the city that runs for over a kilometre in a dead straight line, and at the end of it the Balcón del Mediterráneo which sits on the top of the cliffs overlooking the beach, railway station and harbour.

From here I walked down the short distance to the main collection of Roman sites in the city to start taking them in, beginning with the Amphitheatre, which, as with many Roman cities, was actually outside of the walled city in this case in the space between the walls of Tarraco and the beach. From the Amphitheatre it was a short walk up to the site of the eastern end of the Roman Circus. Today only a small part of the former chariot racing circuit remains, but what does remain gives a good impression of the scale of the site, including the height of the stands, and the amount of engineering that went into the construction with the large under stand passageways that still stretch underneath the modern city linking up now disparate sets of remains.

The Circus also connects through to the start of the Provincial Forum and at the beginning of that the Pretorian Tower. This originally Roman structure was later adapted by the Normans adding height to the building, which today makes it the perfect roof top to climb up on top of to get excellent views across the Old Town, Circus, Amphitheatre and the coast.

Back down at ground level I stopped off for lunch in one of the restaurants in the square immediately behind the tower, sitting on top of what would once have been the provincial forum. Based on the timings of dinner the previous day I decided that it would probably be wise to have my main meal of the day at lunch, so I proceeded to have a very nice, and lengthy, lunch stop on the square – in part helped by there being several other people doing the same thing.

Feeling like I probably didn’t need to eat for several days I staggered away from the restaurant after nearly two hours and continued my exploration of the city by heading over to the western end of the surviving walls of the city. The Walls actually consist of two concentric rings – the outer, lower walls, which are mostly from the Middle Ages, and the inner higher walls that are a mix of ages, but with some dating back to the Roman era. Between the two sets of walls is now a walking path that is lined with archaeological artefacts that have been found around the city.

Whilst it was only just over a kilometre to walk the route there was quite a lot to see, so it actually ended up taking most of the rest of the afternoon before I made it to the end of the path, at which point it looked like it could start raining – though in the end the rain clouds bypassed the city, but I took that as my cue to head back to the hotel to freshen up and relax for a little while.

Later in the evening I headed out to have a wander around the city at night, and to get some nighttime photos of the city, as well as quickly grabbing a beer and a small plate of tapas in a local bar just to top my stomach levels back up to full, before heading back to my comfy hotel bed.