The Expensive Incident
We often used to leave Kenzo and Lui unattended with our laptops. It would mean the four of us would be able to do other things while the little ones were entertained watching something on YouTube. When Lui gets bored he closes the laptop screen and walks away, leaving Kenzo upset the laptop has been turned off.
One day, Lui got bored. He closed the screen, or he tried to, but there was a pen sitting on the keyboard for no apparent reason. This was enough to completely shatter the screen and leave it black and unusable.
Ajay and I hunted for a screen repair nearby but the closest MacBook screen repair shop was in Tarragona, a one hour train ride away. We decided we would make a day trip out of it.
Cheapest Trains
The cheapest train tickets to Tarragona was a two hour train. The morning one left at 7am and the return train came back by 9pm. It was going to be a long day.
Central Market
We arrived in Tarragona at 9am and walked to the repair shop only to find it was still closed. It was a drizzling day but not rainy enough to be bothersome. We stumbled across the central market where we stopped and had breakfast. I had delicious vegetarian food, while the kids had yummy pastas. Ajay tried a raw fish that he thought was like the island coconut milk raw fish, but it wasn’t very enjoyable. Turns out it was one of the local foods of the region.
Again we explored the seafood section, checking out all the strange fish that we weren’t used to seeing. Then we wondered down to some nice bakeries and enjoyed the local desserts before handing in our laptop for repair. The cost was ridiculously high but because we couldn’t find any other authorised repairers we paid the price. The worst part is that our travel insurance doesn’t cover the cost of screen repair of phones or laptops. Guess it’s the most easily broken item that everyone takes with them on their travels.
Pretty Buildings
We wandered along towards a pretty fountain called the Font Del Centenari. From here there is a main boulevard called Rambla Nova, that leads to the cliff top edge of the city that looks over the Mediterranean Sea. There were pretty buildings and many statues along the way.
Cliff Top
The cliff top had a platform where you can look down to the main beach. Out to the right is the train station, out to the left are other cliffs with Roman ruins on them and out in front is the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. The cliff top area had an interesting fountain of a boy strangling a duck that had us amused.
Roman Colosseum
From the cliff we walked a copule of minutes to where we could view the Roman colosseum which was built around 100ACE. The amfiteatre de Tarragona is the closest colosseum to next to the sea. The stands were carved out of the bedrock it sits on.
At one point Tarragona was called Tarraco and was one of the most important cities in the old Roman Empire. Tarraco was the capital of the Hispania Tarraconesis which covered most of the current Spain area. It held gladiator fights and executions, including three christians. When the Roman Empire became Christian, they built a basilica dedicated to the three martyrs in the middle of the unused colosseum.
Roman Ruins
It was a steep walk up the hill to view more Roman ruins and medieval ruins. The Roman city was massive in Tarragona. It included a Roman Circus which is a massive stadium with a track for horse and chariot racing. It also had a tower used to connect the tunnels running under the seating to the upper city. The tower is still standing and has been used for so many purposes over the centuries including a castle for royalty of Aragon, then later a storage area and then a prison.
Medieval Ruins
After the Romans abandoned the city, new settlers, hundreds of years later, began building on top of the Roman city. They used whatever walls they could as part of their buildings and demolished some parts to form streets or doors. We wandered along the cobblestone streets and into some of the restaurants whose walls were from the old Roman city. Many excavations were still happening around the city, as the value of the roman ruin tourism industry has boomed.
Mall Time
Because the options are limited in smaller cities, we headed to the mall to pick up some essentials. Outside, we found fresh churros and hot chocolate. The Spanish hot chocolate is more like melted chocolate with a fraction of milk. We used it as dipping sauce for the churros.
Home Time
After much walking and lots of eating, we headed to the train station. On the other side of the tracks is the beach so we crossed the pedestrian bridge going over the tracks to take a better look. Kenzo and Lui loved running up and down the long ramps and watching the trains from the top of the bridge. We were all exhausted and looking forward to being back home. There is so much more to explore in Tarragona but I’m glad we had the opportunity to see what we could.
