Jim goes to Tarragona

Jim has just got back from Tarragona a small town 90 minutes outside of Barcelona. He booked Tarragona as he’d seen direct flights there from Liverpool, and no one loves an easy travel day as much as Jim (although he did have early flight times both ways). Jim decided to rent an Airbnb for the week in Tarragona Part Alta (better known as the old town), the Airbnb was quite small but had everything he needed.

Jim enjoying a cold beer in the cobbled streets of Tarragona

If you like Roman ruins, history and more of a rustic vibe then Tarragona is without doubt the place for you. Jim explored multiple roman ruins, local bars, narrow cobbled streets and the local food scene whilst he was there. He also avoided popular tourist spots. He says you need only three days to hit the main sites, although he enjoyed the slower pace of travel with some time to explore the local watering holes.

Narrow streets & old towns

Consideration is needed for the immense heat making it hard to visit more than one major site per day, Jim was easily doing 15k steps per day walking everywhere. He particularly enjoyed speaking Spanish to the locals, he found a great local bar where his amigo Daniel was the star of the show. What surprised him was how much Catalan differs to Castellano and how widely spoken it is in the area, something to consider for those wanting to visit the Spanish northeast. However, everyone understood his broken Castellano Spanish.

Amigo Daniel

There is no doubt that the locals appreciated the effort he made speaking to them in Spanish. He felt he was always treated much better when he attempted to speak the language. Jim survived very easily almost everywhere, as long as they didn’t expect him to be fluent.

It was a fantastic holiday all round and Jim had a wonderful time.