Tarragona and Its Outlying Regions

Today I decided to take an excursion to Tarragona and see what rural Spain is like. I got to the train station, bought my ticket, and headed down to the platform. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. It just so happened there was an "accident" (the metro and rails like to use this term in place of their own screw ups) and our train to Tarragona was delayed by an hour and a half. Whoopie. I ended up standing/sitting/ talking with people in Spanish, underground, waiting for this train to magically show up. It finally did, around 11 or so, when it was supposed to leave at 9:30, and I was well on my way. Getting to the city, I found it was not so "small" as I had hoped, but I ate some lunch and scrambled around for a bit. I actually did not see  much there, because I was in search of an isolated beach, far far away. So I took the train back one stop, and went on an adventure!

Getting off the train, I followed the signs to a nature reserve, with trails, a mountain, and an ocean. Hiking a long the beach, which was pretty sparsely populated, I was in search of an even more sparsely populated beach, so I kept going, towards this castle on the cliffs. I rounded the corner, and found these magnificent views!

After scurrying around the cliffs, and clambering up rock walls, I ended up finding a very, very secluded, tiny beach, which was perfect. I changed and put out my towel, and enjoyed a nice day of relaxation to myself in a secluded cove. It looks something like this:

So finally, I returned to the train station, after a wonderful day, and observed some of the tiny town of Altafulla. It was a medium sized rural city, but everywhere was dead. Completely deserted. Nobody was hanging out around the placas, nobody sitting on the benches, no one. It was even a Friday evening, you would have thought something was happening. I eventually found the train station, and hopped on the last train to Barcelona, and had a wonderful ride of only coastal views all the way back to the city.

-Nick Ford