We begin our getaway in Serrallo, Tarragona’s marine neighbourhood, a reference point due to its gastronomic offer and prime location. Here, parents, children and grandchildren of fishermen alike have followed in the traditional professional footsteps of their ancestors to preserve the marine soul of the streets of Serrallo.
Tarragona enjoys a strategic location in the Mediterranean that favoured the arrival of the Romans and its development as the capital of Hispania Citerior. More than 2,000 years ago, the Romans built the first man-made port buildings. Since then, the Tarragona coast has been, with varying degrees of success, an entry and exit route for products, ideas and people. This port tradition is evident in the Serrallo Muelle de Costa, former premises of the Port of Tarragona converted into a space for civic and cultural use in 1986. There, we find the recently renovated Port Museum, which offers detailed explanations of its history, from the times of the Roman Tarraco to the current day. It also showcases life on the docks, different types of fishing, sports activities, boats and merchandise linked to the Mediterranean.
Still in the Muelle de Costa, we find Tinglado 4, which was a maritime passenger terminal in the nineties and now houses the “TARRACO/MNAT” exhibition, where we can learn about the history of Tarraco through archaeology and the most emblematic pieces from the
MNAT collection.
We simply can’t leave the port without taking a stroll to the spectacular Banya lighthouse, a unique testimony of the metal lighthouses that were built at the mouth of the Ebre. It was located at the Punta de la Banya and in the past was a shelter for boats during storms and a place for exchanging goods and supplies in the Ràpita area.
Roman Tarragona is also well worth a visit, with impressive monuments preserved from those times. We can take in the Necropolis of Tarraco, one of the best-known and best-preserved late Roman cemeteries of the Roman Empire, or the Theatre of Tarraco, a Augustan-age construction that still preserves part of the stands and the stage. But also the spectacular Amphitheatre, where gladiator fights and wild animal hunts took place, and the archaeological walk along the Roman wall.
An excursion proposed in collaboration with the magazine
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