Tarragona: Heart And Soul Of Catalunya

It is with an absolute, unbridled delight that I discover that nothing much has changed. Plaça de la Font is absolutely alive, almost every table at every restaurant taken, a stage set up in front of the grand Town Hall in readiness for tonight’s show of traditional dancing, the atmospheric square packed with families where small children, teenagers and grandparents mix as if socialising with all ages is the most natural thing on Earth. It’s gone 11pm and the children still have boundless energy as they ride stabilised bikes, burst balloons and indulge in games of chase.

This is Tarragona, a place I have visited many, many times before and fell completely in love with in a previous life, during the 2000s. It is a city with everything, including a scruffy ordinariness and a self sufficient economy, where there is no concern or care over whether or not any foreign tourists come to spend money. I have always adored the fact that you never quite feel part of it: Tarragona is a rare opportunity to peep through a window into the private life of Spain, of Catalunya, and see how their world really is, without the overbearing influence of mass tourism.

OK so there is now an English translation on the menus where there used to be only Catalan first and Castillian Spanish second, but precious little else has changed. This is their town, their secret, kept for themselves with no selling of the tourist soul, and it still feels as wonderful as it ever did. We are spoken to in Catalan, nobody asks us where we’re from, nobody asks us which football team we support. 

I got very used to all this in the 2000s and visited many times over the course of a few years – this is Michaela’s first time. I learnt the city’s quirks, its hills and its hidden gems, even developed an affinity for the local football team, timing my visits to coincide with home matches and taking my seat in the “Gol Sud” end. The club’s nickname is Nastic – my sons and I, and a few others, became the self-styled “Nastikers Inglès”.

In fact my original association with Tarragona goes back even further, as I first came here as a child on a family holiday in the 1960s. Many reading this will not be old enough to remember life in the 60s, but travel was significantly different back then. Crossing the border from France into General Franco’s fascist Spain meant being shepherded by armed guards, guns at the ready – guards who opened every suitcase and rifled through our stuff. Only when they chalked an “X” on the case could we breathe a sigh of relief and pass through.

“We’re in Spain now”, Dad would say, though at my young age I couldn’t quite grasp how we could change countries inside a single railway station building. In Tarragona back then, the walls of every building throughout the city had, every few yards, a simple white poster with bold black writing, on every building in every street. Each one read, simply, “FRANCO FRANCO FRANCO”. The Rambla Nova had been renamed El Generalissimo. Fascists were ruling Spain with an iron grip and seeking to crush Catalans completely, a time when simply speaking in Catalan was punishable by imprisonment.

Returning for regular visits in the 2000s was, though, a revelation. Tarragona, unlike so much of the Spanish Med, had opted for commerce over tourism, clinging fiercely to its status as the beating heart of the Catalan spirit, and had become a thriving, independent community, one where the visitor could play a part, but never become a part. Now, in 2023, it feels absolutely wonderful to discover that things really haven’t changed that much: this is still a place where life…..goes on.

And yet Tarragona has riches sufficient to make it a destination for any inquisitive traveller: ancient city walls, spectacular Roman ruins including an amphitheatre by the sea, golden beaches meeting the deep blue Med and the “Balcó del Mediterrani”, a unique promenade way above the sea with its huge views across the blue. The ripped backsides of Tarragona’s industry and docklands are hidden from view by the hills and the curve of the coastline, but its tight streets with lofty tenements and washing lines hung from balconies are on full display for all to see. It’s all so…real.

As “Tarragona time” approached, I worked hard on playing down expectations, it’s a long time since I’ve been here and I wanted to avoid over selling Tarragona to Michaela – after all, we’ve been to a lot of terrific places since we’ve been together and I am much more well travelled since those visits in the 2000s. Yet I needn’t have worried – Tarragona is as splendid as I remembered and Michaela is quickly hooked.

Turn a blind corner of a street and you may be confronted by another section of the ancient city walls, or the columns of the Roman forum, a medieval burial site – or a mural depicting Tarragona’s splendid and colourful history. Being here is like being in a mini Rome. The giant, expansively decorated cathedral sits proudly atop the central hill, still guarding over the faithful residents as it has for centuries, the steps on its approach curved and polished by the footfall of centuries.

But in amongst these quintessentially Spanish streets with their multiple overhanging balconies, in amongst the unexpected plazas and their larger partners, down the Rambla and along the Balcó, the true beating heart of Tarragona is its people and their traditions. This city is the soul of Catalunya.

Every September, Tarragona is host to the Fiesta de Santa Tecla, by some considerable distance the craziest, most hedonistic fiesta I have attended – so far, anyway. It’s a loud, indulgent, incessant week – but, as we are to discover this time with great serendipity, it isn’t by any means the only party of the year. It’s possible to get the feeling that the gaps between fiestas are shorter than the fiestas themselves. This week we catch the end of the feast of the Virgin Mary (Fiesta de Sant Magi) then when it ends it’s….well, it’s the weekend. May as well have another fiesta.

Tarragona lays claim to being the birthplace of one of the most endearing and exciting features of Catalan culture, the castellers, or human towers: such a fantastic spectacle to witness. This time we don’t catch a full performance at the fiesta, but we do see an hour of practice outside the cathedral. Even the practice session is brilliant though short on the drama of the real thing when the baying crowd roars its appreciation, but there’s still a considerable thrill at the crowning moment when the small child scales right to the top, raises a triumphant arm, then slides down the other side.

As the place of its origin, Tarragona remains the epicentre of the casteller scene, a scene which extends throughout Spanish Catalunya. For spectators like us, the point where the child reaches the top of the tower is a real heart-in-mouth moment – goodness only knows how the Mum and Dad feel.

Fiestas throughout Spain are never complete without the parades, most often featuring music, costumes, firecrackers, rifle shots and other random local traditions. All of these are here, including the “gigantes” and “negritos” with their slightly haunting faces and the remarkable ability to dance despite being 15 feet tall. The party finally winds down somewhere after 3am, just in time for the start of preparations for the next one. Tarragona is alive and bouncing every night of its life – no wonder these guys still take their siesta seriously, life here is breathless.

Amid all this fiesta it’s almost possible to overlook the absorbing history of Tarragona which lurks in the sections of ancient city walls, in the amphitheatre and on the decorative balconies of its houses. Its Roman name of Tarraco is still widely used: this was for years the winter home of Emperor Augustus, expanded and fortified during Roman occupation and developed into the wealthiest Iberian coastal town of that time.

Evidence of that time is all over the city, in its walls and fortifications, its forum and amphitheatre, which together add up to another UNESCO World Heritage site – there’s been quite a few of those on this trip. A short bus ride out of town brings us to the Ferreres Aqueduct, aka Pont del Diable (Devil’s Bridge), a beautifully preserved double-height construction spanning what is now a dry gorge – like Pont du Gard, a magnificent sight and yet more evidence of Roman ingenuity when it comes to the movement of water.

Tarragona has an absorbing past, and a fabulous, vibrant present. What a great place it is. A place which just keeps on giving.

After a gap of about twenty years it has been so thoroughly enjoyable to come back to this vibrant city-with-everything and find that so little of its character has changed. The constant mood of fiesta may make this one of the liveliest cities you’ll ever visit – don’t come here if you need early nights – the whole feel is still that Tarragona is Spanish, is Catalan, absorbed in its own way of life which will continue to be handed down through the generations. It’s fascinating to think that some of the young adults engaged in this carnival atmosphere, were the children which I might have seen on my last visits, now playing their part in the community in exactly the way that their parents and grandparents did – while their own children are now the ones watching the processions with wide-eyed awe. And thinking, “one day, when I’m old enough…”

And it’s been brilliant to find that I still love this place. Even better that Michaela has now also fallen under its spell. I’m not actually sure that we want to leave. Let’s just check Nastic’s fixture list….