Catalona Days 3/4: Final Day in Tarragona, Montserrat and a night in Girona

The original plan was to write a blog every day so as to not forget what we did and more importantly how we felt while we did it. Well we have slacked a bit on this and the last thing you want to feel on vacation is that you have to do homework or something. So you get two days for the price of one in this blog!

Friday was our last day in Tarragona.  Three days here was enough and I think we were both ready for some new adventure but I also would not have wanted to spend less than three days here.

Tarragona is a hidden gem along the Catalonian coast. Incredible food, scenery and people. I mentioned in a previous blog that hardly anyone spoke English. While that was true everyone was extremely friendly and far from annoyed with our bungling Spanish. Almost everywhere we went people helped make us feel at home. The town itself only has 130,000 people who live there but feels much larger and more vibrant than that. I can not recommend enough going there for a few days if you are heading to Barcelona.

So on to our final day. As Trista alluded to in our last blog we have been staying out late and waking up early. This was no exception. Rolling out of bed around 130pm we had several goals for the day. First up was to go to the main market in central Tarragona.

Inside was two stories of butchers , fish merchants, fruit and vegtable stands and stalls with prepared food and small places to sit around a bar and eat and have a coffee, wine or beer.

We settled on a lunch of a couple beers and some stuffed meat pies they call croquettes here. We got chicken and tuna and they were both excellent. I won't lie the beers definitely did not hurt shaking the cobwebs out from the previous night. Afterwards we wandered around and took in everything they offered there. If we lived there no doubt that would be a good place to buy fresh produce, seafood and meat.

Our second goal for the day was to go to the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre that is right next to the beach in the center of town. It is always humbling to walk around in and on a structure built almost 2000 years ago.

Our last goal for the day was to go experience Santa Tecla. It is a giant festival that runs for ten days there and luckily we were fortunate that our last day was the first day of this festival. It started off with some fireworks and essentially turned into a giant street party after that.

If you were brave you could even use one of these outdoor street port-a-potty urinals!

After taking this in for a bit it was time to get down to business. The main event. Which was to find an authentic tapas restaurant and eat some dinner. We had tried to go to Coimbra the first night but it was closed for a Catalonian holiday so we headed there on our last night. We had a mackerel and tomato salad, very lightly fried dogfish and oxtail with what I think were shishito peppers. We actually ordered a 4th dish to start but when we got the 3rd one we decided we better not as they were all huge. With a bottle of wine it was about 40 euro total, a complete bargain.

After a two hour dinner it was nearing midnight so of course we headed straight to bed to rest up for our departure the next day. Just kidding, we went to a craft beer bar near our hotel named La Surfera on Tap. The beer was all local and excellent and the staff was extremely friendly. You also got a free tapas with each beer which we only partially took advantage of because we were so full from dinner.

After that we really did head to bed and the next morning headed to Montserrat. Montserrat is some very tall mountains (about 10,000 feet) that happen to have a 1200 or so year old monastery (still has 80 monks or so to this day) near the top. We tried to drive there but waited in a huge queue that took at least an hour and never found a spot at the top so drove back to the bottom of the mountain and took the train up. The views from the  top were pretty spectacular and the cathedral/monastery itself was very beautiful and peaceful.

Our next stop was Girona for one night. By the time we reached our hotel it was time for a nap. We really only had time for a late dinner that night. We found an excellent restaurant named Syrah within walking distance of our hotel. Pretty much every meal we have eaten here has been tapas/larger dishes eaten family style and this was no exception. We had a bottle of Catalonian Syrah (their wine list was almost entirely Syrag), a fried egg curry salad, a chorizo and snails dish, some kind of mixed grill that the manager suggested that had chicken, roast and sausage in it, a bacon risotto and then a Catalonian cake which is essentially their take on flan. It was all excellent and came out to about 45 Euro after everything. I must say the food here has been a real bargain.

After that we actually head to bed. Off to Pallafrugel the next morning.  Thanks for reading!