Spain Guide
Catalunya
Museu d'Historia de Tarragona
Website: www.museutgn.com
Opening time: All sites summer Tues– Sat 9am–9pm, Sun 9am–3pm; winter Tues– Sat 9am–7pm, Sun 10am–3pm
Price: Each site €2.45; collective ticket €9.25
Five of Tarragona's Roman sites, dotted around the city, are collectively known as the Museu d'Historia de Tarragona. Start at the Volta del Pallol (Mon– Sat 9am–9pm, Sun 9am–3pm; free), near the Portal del Roser, which has a small but informative introductory exhibition on the Roman town, and an evocative scale model of what it once looked like.
Walk through the Portal del Roser to enter the Passeig Arqueològic Muralles, a promenade which encircles the northernmost half of the old town. A path runs between Roman walls of the third century BC and the sloping, outer fortifications erected by the British in 1709. Megalithic walls built by the Iberians are excellently preserved in places, too, particularly two awesome gateways; the huge blocks are quite distinct from the more refined Roman additions. Vantage points (and occasional telescopes) give views across the plain behind the city and around to the sea, while objects within the passeig include Roman columns, a fine bronze statue of Augustus and eighteenth-century cannons still defending the city's heights.
As Roman provincial capital, Tarragona sustained both a ceremonial Forum Provincial (the scant remnants of which are displayed on Plaça del Forum) and a Forum de la Colonia on c/Lleida, whose more substantial remains are on the western side of Rambla Nova. This was the commercial centre of imperial Tarraco and the main meeting place for locals for three centuries. The site, which contained temples and small shops ranged around a porticoed square, has been split by a main road.
At the seaward end of the Rambla Vella, the Amfiteatre was built into the green slopes of the hill. The tiered seats backing onto the sea are original, and from the top you can look north, up the coast, to the headland.
Above here, on the Rambla Vella itself, are the visible remains of the Roman circus, the Circ Roma, whose vaults disappear back from the street into the gloom. You can exit through the Roman Pretori tower on Plaça del Rei.