Camp de Tarragona

Sheltered by the Serra de Montsant and surrounded by silence and nature, the Escaladei chapterhouse in the Priorat is the oldest Carthusian monastery on the peninsula and currently the only one accessible to the public in Catalonia. Its foundation dates back to 1194, after a concession by Alfonso the Chaste to establish a settlement in newly conquered lands.

 

Last year, the renovation and roofing works of the old monastery church were concluded, which was left in ruins after the abandonment, plunder and destruction it suffered following the ecclesiastical confiscation of 1835. The architectural rehabilitation project was completed this year with the new museography inaugurated by the site, fully integrated, and with the immersive virtual reality experience The eyes of history, which transports the visitor back to the 17TH century through the voice and life experience of the creator of the church decoration, Joaquim Juncosa. The experience also allows visitors to find out more about the monks’ daily life thanks to the audiovisual installation Eternal silence, in the Chapterhouse for the Fathers.

 

A short distance away, the monastery castle of Escornalbou, in the Baix Camp, is another patrimonial element that has been handed down to the territory from the past. This monastery was supposedly built on a Saracen fortress, which was later rebuilt as the private residence of Eduard Toda. The diplomat and Egyptologist bought the monastery of Sant Miquel de Escornalbou in 1907 when he returned from his travels through China, Egypt, Sardinia and northern Europe, and made it his home, a meeting point for the main figures of the Renaissance.

 

Works are currently being completed to adapt the monastery castle, now converted into a museum house and exhibiting the legacy of Toda, such as his extensive library and samples of the collections he gathered during his travels. The visit includes a walk around the church, the chapterhouse and the cloister, which he turned into a garden offering one of the best views of the regions of Tarragona.

 

If you choose to visit these spaces as a family, it’s worth preparing for your visit by listening to Si les parets parlessin (If the walls could talk), the podcast that tells the curious stories of several monuments in the territory –among them, Escaladei and Escornalbou– and that gives a voice to characters from the past.

A proposal brought to you in collaboration with Descobrir magazine.

 

 

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 Descobrir.