Tarragona Field Trip

Me at the Roman Amphitheatre

Roman Building

Ruins of a Roman Villa

View of Amphitheatre and Sea from our balcony

Roman Amphitheatre

One of the most culturally enriching experiences for me while I was abroad was when I went on the IES field trip to Tarragona.  Tarragona is a Catalan a few hours south of Barcelona.  During the Roman era, Tarragona was a thriving city with a great fortress and amphitheatre.  Today, the ruins of these structures are for the most part still intact.  We stayed at gorgeous hotel on the water – the Husa Imperial Tarraco.  Our room had a balcony that overlooked the water and the Roman amphitheatre.  On our first tour of Tarragona, we went to see the Roman wall that used to encompass the city for protection purposes.  Like Barcelona, Tarragona followed the same layout and construction with a surrounding wall and a center market.  We saw a model of what the city used to look like.  Next, we walked around the enormous wall and she explained when it was built and what different aspects of the wall were used for.  For example, there was a main door with a large entrance to the city, but there were also various smaller doors around the wall for emergency purposes, such as fires.  Towards the end of the tour, we were taken into the amphitheatre.  We learned that it was free for all of the citizens but the lower class sat in the bleacher seats while the wealthier and aristocratic classes sat in the front rows.  We were told that a Christian bishop was burned alive there and that when the Visigoths took the city they built a chapel in the amphitheatre to commemorate his death.

                The Tarragona field trip was especially enriching because it was a school field trip with guided tours and it was definitely a more academic atmosphere then when I travel to other cities with my friends.  I learned a great deal about the Roman occupation of Spain and it was nice to see the Roman influence that we had been learning about in Catalan Cultural Studies.