Ramble
Quest - A Taste of Tarragona
I have a surprisingly difficult time figuring out the trains at Barcelona's confusing Estacio-Sants station. They actually have five different ticket lines and I have the bad luck to go to the wrong four first. Also, they only flash an unusually small number of upcoming trains on the board and it turns out that there's none to Tarragona for awhile, so that throws me. Of course I do work it out and later discover that all of the other train stations I used in Spain were extremely easy to navigate.
As usual, I'm completely winging my itinerary. My "plan" is to head south for awhile, and then turn around and go north of Barcelona, ending up in Girona. I picked Tarragona because I liked the sound of the name and I knew it was a Roman city. I use my tried and true technique of taking a room at the first place I see coming out of the station.
I loved this place! I visit the ruins of the Roman circus and the Provincial Forum tower museum. I check out the Necropolis and the small, but excellent Museu Nacional Arqueologic. The gothic Cathedral is surprisingly outstanding, and the admission comes with an English pamphlet. I didn't have time to fully see it during my first visit, so they let me return the next day.
The inner old city still has it's high walls that can be walked. I shell out the regular admission fee and the ticket woman amazes me by insisting on charging the student fare! I don't know whether she was complimenting me for looking young or insulting me for looking poor. The views from the walls are fabulous, and the perfect sunny blue sky exults my spirits.
I took a bus out to the 12-14th century Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet. There's only one bus in and out from Tarragona and I arrive just at the start of the annoyingly long closing time for siesta. The monastery is in the middle of some lovely hills, so I'm happy to spend a few hours hiking around first. The monastery tour is only conducted in Catalan, but it's a fabulously interesting place and I don't have any trouble figuring out what each room is for. The visit was well worth the difficulties involved in getting there.
Maybe it's the influence of Spanish wine and the F. Scott Fitzgerald novels I've been reading, or perhaps it's just my generally exultant mood while wandering these ancient Catalunyan streets, but back in town I had a night where I thought I could understand the locals and actually believed that watching Spanish girls try to sing J-Pop was about the cutest thing I've ever seen. Returning roomward, walking down a hill along one of the narrowest streets in the old town, a fight materializes around me.
As is so often the case, it starts with two women, but two large guys are quickly involved. All participants are within two arm lengths of me and this street is so narrow that I'm literally trapped in the middle of the melee. One of the guys is brutally hit in the face, most likely with something besides a fist. His nose splits open and blood streams out. The injured man covers his head with one arm and starts digging around in his jacket pocket with his free hand. I instinctively think a gun will be pulled and try to get out of the line of fire. However, the two women are rolling around on the ground behind me, locked with claws embraced in each other's hair, so retreat is out. I try to move away from the attacking guy, thinking he'll be shot at, but that puts me closer to the bloody guy who I doubt will be able to see very well what he's aiming at.
But this is Spain and not the States, so the bloody guy's hand emerges with, not a gun, but an impressively large switchblade knife and he starts flailing around with it like the drunken blind man he most closely resembles. I leap backwards, and everyone, including the two women, start backing up the hill, away from the mad, whistling knife. Fortunately, this guy isn't bent on revenge and is just freaked out by the violence of the guy who hit him. The other guy did seem to be the maniac of the bunch. So the knife actually defused the situation. Once the knife man stops his windmill imitation I tiptoe past him, escaping unscathed.