Tarragona

Tarragona shares an unpleasant habit with a lot of the rest of Europe : parking for motorhomes is forbidden anywhere near where you want to be, and as a result you spend forever circling around in ever increasing circles trying to find somewhere to park.

That said, its a pleasant town with a long  Roman history : the Roman ruins of Tarraco have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Part of the bases of large Cyclopean walls near the Cuartel de Pilatos are thought to pre-date the Romans. The aforesaid building, a prison in the 19th century, is said to have been the palace of Augustus. The 2nd century amphitheatre, near the sea-shore, was extensively used as a quarry after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and but few vestiges of it now remain.

The modern and the old rub shoulders all over the place, with major renovations and rebuilding being done to the cathedral - bizarrely they have chosen to do it in concrete grey, which is completely out of kilter with the older sandy colored stone.

Street graffitti is also very prevalent - mostly done to enhance rather than the usual scrawl of illegible monikers. This cat, perched in a bricked up window appealed to my sense of humour...

As befits a major town near Valencia, the streets are lined with orange trees, with some interesting results where the local youths have got bored and whiled away the afternoon lobbing oranges at anti-pigeon spikes on old buildings. The new are still bright and orange, whilst surrounded by a veritable pot-pourri of old dried oranges!

Tarragona is worth a visit - a Ryan Air or Easyjet weekend - but to be honest, not much more than that!