Friday, July 15, 2011

Tarragona, Valencia and Catarroja

The last part of our vacation took us from Barcelona to Tarragona and then on to Valencia and Catarroja.  (Part ONE and part TWO of our trip, plus a couple of my FAVES, if you missed them)

First, Tarragona:  


If I *had* to pick a favorite place from our trip, I think Tarragona would be it.  It's amazingly beautiful as the above photo clearly shows.  It's right on the Mediterranean (as was our hotel) and has a fascinating history (yeah...my degree is in history, so I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to this stuff!).  I also celebrated my birthday while we were there--so that automatically gives it bonus points, right? 



My birthday dessert...fresas con nata (strawberries and cream) which was delicious!  My candle wouldn't stay lit because of the wind.

Overlooking the Mediterranean and an old Roman amphitheatre.  Tarragona was a Roman city (Tarraco) and there are a lot of Roman ruins around the city.  I could have spent another day there checking them out, but my husband was a little bored with it after a couple of hours.  

More of the Amphitheatre.  Inside the center of the amphitheatre, there was also the ruins of a Christian church, which was really interesting.  You can see the wall of it in the left foreground of this photo.  

Roman Circus

Roman vaults

Finally, we went to Valencia for a couple of days.  Yet another church.

View from our hotel.

We took a short train ride to the pueblo of Catarroja.  My husband lived there about 9 years ago and heard all about how great this one little horchata shop was, but because it was seasonal, he never got to visit it.  So we did, and it was rather tasty! 

This is the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in Valencia.  It consists of some museums, an opera house, and an aquarium.  We hadn't planned on going here, but it was really close to our hotel so we decided to walk through.  I'm glad that we did.  It was pretty neat.  


We had a really great trip.  Spain was amazing.  I had forgotten how much I love to travel! 


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