Day 33 - La Móra and Tarragona

- October 11, 2018

Tarragona

After seeing how much the girls were enjoying staying at Torre de la Mora we quickly decided that we would stay here for the second night and give the kids some more downtime in the pool and at the beach. Despite this, it still took a lot of coaxing to get Madi on the bus into Tarragona before being able to go for a swim in the pool.

After breakfast and the girls building sandcastles on the beach, we boarded the local bus for the short trip into Tarragona. For €1.50 the bus took us from door to door, dropping us in the thick of the tourist sites in central Tarragona. Tarragona is (as the Lonely Planet describes), an eternally sunny port city and an improbable mix of Mediterranean beach life, Roman history and medieval alleyways. It is also Spain's second-most important Roman site, as it contains a wealth of UNESCO-listed historic Roman sites.

Our first stop was the Amfiteatre de Tarragona - a seaside amphitheatre, which was the quintessential site for spectacles - including battles between gladiators and wild animals. It was built in the 2nd century AD, measured 63x38 metres and was though to have held 14,000 spectators. It is very Roman Coliseum-esk and together with the spectacular backdrop of the Mediterranean sea, would have been a truly amazing place to be entertained. Set in a beautiful park (above it) with views of the ruins and beach beyond we spent time walking through the stands and floor of the amphitheatre learning about the significance of the site and what it has been used as since the 2nd century.

When we purchased entry to the amphitheatre we bought a combo pass that got us into a number of historic sites in Tarragona, so after the amphitheatre we cross the road and headed to Torre de les Monges and Praetorium and the Roman Circus. The 12th century Roman walls including the Monges Tower, provided great views over Tarragona and the Mediterranean sea, but the most interesting was the tunnels/vaults under the Roman circus and the museum which houses stones from the ruins that were thousands of years old. The girls loved walking through the tunnels and into the pitch black rooms. One of the vaults was 93m long.

After wandering though the ruins, it was time for lunch, so we headed into the (predominantly) pedestrian streets of the old town and the Plaça de la Font. Plaça de la Font is a quaint town square surrounded by restaurants serving anything from hamburgers to traditional spanish food. We decided to sit down and have a three course meal at a restaurant called Sentits and by the time we were done, could not fit another thing in. Madi had a 2 course kids meal, but Sierra, Kristie and I had three courses, and for lunch this was huge. We started with Spaghetti Bolognese, then Sierra and I had a burger while Kristie tasted local delights, and finally we finished with desert.

Despite the cathedral being talked as a highlight on a visit to Tarragona, the kids descided against yet another church. We wandered around the streets of the old town and visited the Passeig Arqueològic - the ancient walls and archaeological promenade that borders almost two sides of the old town.

As it was getting late in the afternoon, we caught the public bus back to the campground and beach, so that Madi could finally have her swim in the resort pool. The kids loved the island in the middle of the pool and swimming around it, before realising that there was so much other stuff to do also. We played basketball (aka netball for Sierra), Soccer, table tennis and mini-golf. Then once the activities and pool closed again at 6:00pm, it was off to the beach for a swim in waves. There confidence in waves is growing and they seem to enjoy beach swimming more than the pool. Of course it helped that the temperature of the water was divine. Almost bath-like.