Tarragona; Thursday, 05 February, 2026

I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel, but it was still a 4:45 alarm call to be up in time to grab a shower and get over to the bus stop for the sole direct bus route from the Bath Road to Terminal 5. The advantage of it being so early was that the airport was still very quiet and I was therefore through security and into the lounge in a matter of seconds.

The flight was uneventful and the European Entry Exit System machines were working correctly at immigration, so I was through that very quickly and onto a shuttle bus round to Terminal 2 and the train station. I was pretty certain that I’d missed the half hourly train into the centre of Barcelona, but when I got to the station there was a train sitting there ready to go.

A couple of weeks earlier there had been a series of fatal accidents on the Spanish rail network which had at one point led to the complete shut down of the local rail services in and around Barcelona. Services had been restored, but significant numbers of speed restrictions were in place across the network which meant timetables were now just an aspiration rather than reality, and – I’m assuming to avoid constant compensation claims for delayed journeys – tickets were being handed out free, so one of the staff at the station happily issued me a €0,00 day single through to Tarragona and held the train for a couple of seconds so I could hop on and it then departed.

I changed trains at Barcelona-Sant and if the timetables had been working correctly would have had about 25 minutes to wait for the train onto Tarragona. With the timetable in such a mess I ended up waiting 25 minutes for the connecting train to Tarragona, so chaotically neutral turned out to be the effect, though the speed restrictions meant that a journey that should have taken just over an hour ended up taking almost two.

From Tarragona station I walked up, and up, and up, most of the way to the highest point in the city centre to my hotel to check-in. Thankfully, because of the delay in getting here my room was already ready so I was able to drop off my stuff, freshen up and head out to have a quick explore of the city.

First stop was immediately in front of the hotel and the remains of the old Amphitheatre of Tarraco. Tarraco was the first Roman settlement on the Iberian Peninsula and is the foundation of the modern city of Tarragona, so naturally there are quite a few Roman remains dotted around the city.

I was intending on visiting most of the sites the following day, and didn’t have that much time left until they started closing for the afternoon, so I just had a wander past the key sites of the Amphitheatre, the former Circus, Pretorian Tower, Provincial Forum and the City Walls – the latter being a mix of ages with some elements dating back to the Roman era, but some of the walls being as late as the early 19th century when, after over 2000 years, the city ceased to be fortified.

I walked around the outside of what remains of the city walls – about 1Km of the original 4Km length and then headed back inside the city to have a look around the Cathedral area before heading back to the hotel.

A little while later I headed out into the city in search of some dinner, only to discover that in Tarragona the kitchens don’t even start up the prep until 8pm with most not opening until 9, so I ended up having to grab a lite bite and some tapas in a bar before heading back to my hotel to catch up on some of the mornings missing sleep.