Roman Tarragona

Tarraco was the capital of Roman Hispania Citerior, and its remains are not gathered in one park but threaded through the modern city. An amphitheatre is cut into the slope directly above the sea. The vaulted substructures of the circus run under the old town, so you walk from daylight into tunnels beneath people's flats. Above them sits the provincial forum, and a long stretch of republican-era wall is followed by a shaded path called the Passeig Arqueologic. Four kilometres out of town, the two-tier Ferreres aqueduct spans a pine gully and can be crossed on foot. A combined ticket links most of it.

What you actually see

• The amphitheatre - an oval cut into the slope with the Mediterranean directly behind it.
• The circus vaults - Roman substructures running under the streets of the old town.
• The Passeig Arqueologic - a walk between the inner and outer faces of the old walls.
• The Ferreres aqueduct - a two-tier arcade in a pine gully outside the city.

When to go

Spring and early autumn. July and August combine heat with a busy beach season, and the open sites offer little shade. Most monuments close in the early afternoon and reopen later, so plan the indoor circus tunnels for the middle of the day. The aqueduct is best in morning light and quietest on weekdays.

Honest expectations

The sites are scattered across a city that is also a working port and beach resort, so you spend time walking between fragments. Signage in English is thin and interpretation assumes some background. The circus is dark and hard to picture as a whole, the amphitheatre is mostly viewed from above, and the aqueduct is genuinely inconvenient without a car.

Nearby

The beaches at Tarragona and Salou, the Priorat wine villages and the monastery of Poblet inland.