When we first booked this cruise with Viking, the itinerary finished in beautiful Barcelona. About three months later, we received a note from Viking that we would NOT be docking and spending an overnight in Barcelona. We would instead be docking and spending the night in Tarragona, a (we researched) small, industrial city south of Barcelona. (You can see how far apart they are above.) That kind of ticked me off because I was really looking forward to being able to wake up on the ship and then go for my pre-dawn photo walk and still be able to sleep on the ship that night.

We later learned that Viking had to switch because even though Barcelona is a HUGE port for cruise ships, there were going to be so many there over the two days (Friday and Saturday) that she would not have been able to stay for three full days. She needed four days tied up at a pier because we would have two days there (arrived Friday morning, disembarked Saturday morning) and then the cruise that followed ours would need the same (embark on Saturday afternoon, sail late on Sunday). Viking just could not take up a berth in Barcelona for that long. So that’s why we wound up in Tarragona.

In hindsight, I am so very glad that we did because it turned into one of my favorite photographic experiences on the trip. And I almost missed it once we were there. I almost missed it because we had tickets for the Viking-included excursion called “A Snapshot of Tarragona,” and when we got up, we just weren’t sure that we wanted to go. After being on the road since August 29, we were pretty much done. Kathleen wanted to just stay on board and pack, but she encouraged me to go ahead and take the excursion. I still (up until 15 minutes before it left) had not committed myself to go. But go, I did.

The first thing to note about leaving the ship was that it was docked a VERY long way from the gate to the port. In other words, this was NOT a port I could have walked out of. And then, once you got out of the port, it was a long way to the city. To say it was a very long way is an understatement. When we got on the “luxury motor coach,” we were then driven for about 30 minutes, and we were still in the port. It is a HUGE industrial port, and we were moored all the way out as far as you can get before still being at sea. And the road out of the port had what seemed like continuous speed bumps that the “luxury motor coach” could not go over quickly. Once we were out of the port, it was another 20 minutes before we were off the coach at the edge of downtown.

At this point, I am beginning to think that I made a mistake in coming. Viking was running shuttles all day long, about every 15 minutes, so I knew I could go back whenever I wanted. Our guide for the day was another guide that seemed to be paid by the word. She walked us around some Roman ruins (as much as I love Italy, if I never see a Roman ruin for a few years, that will be OK with me), which were pretty cool, but they didn’t really hold that much interest for me. I have so many photos from my Tarragona day that I will put the Roman ruins and what we could see from them here. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The first Roman wall and turret.

Closer view

Looking behind me, this more modern church.

More ruins

Of a chariot race track.

More ruins.

More ruins still.

And the obligatory narrow street scene.

And more ruins.

Lived the cool patterns on this tile.

And another cool street.

On the other side of the citadel.

More narrow streets. But cooler colors.

More citadel but another view point.

Inside the ruins

Upstairs on the ruins.

More and more ruins.

Stop the ruins!

And the (even though they are cool) narrow streets.

But I did live this actual ruin that was left in place. Each door goes into a different restaurant’s patio.

Yes, more ruins.

With cool windows

And cool verandahs.

One more ruins for you.

What did grab my interest were explosions and gunshots going off about three blocks away. We had been told that there was a Catalunya-wide festival going on that weekend (Catalunya is the “state” that both Tarragona and Barcelona are in) so we were pretty sure that this was what we were hearing. We could also see fireworks and a parade at the end of those three blocks. Here’s what I saw when I looked down the streets and then walked around to do some more investigating.

You can see the crowds.

I took this from about two blocks away. You can see a lion “float” on the right.

Throughout the city center you could see people like this having a festival breakfast on the sidewalks.

And the crowds were growing.

The square was filling with people.

There were many more people having a meal together.

The wine was flowing at 9:45 am

Note the different colors of shirts everyone is where.

Here’s the green team.

And this is what they would be competing in later in the day—human pyramids.

No, I did not get to see the human pyramids in Tarragona. To show you the photo above, I took a picture of a picture. But we did get to see one being built on Sunday in Barcelona. We weren’t able to see one built in Tarragona, because around noon, it started to rain, accompanied by quite the thunderstorm, so they were canceled for Friday. After looking at a few more ruins, the guide said we would now have some free time, but not to go downtown, it would be too loud and dangerous near the parades. So you know what I did…I went right downtown where the parades were. I am so glad I did. An amazing experience, as you will see.

On the way downtown, I found people getting ready for a parade. It turns out they do the parades twice in the morning. Once from the square and once back. So I ran into a bunch of people getting ready to march on my way down. Here’s a quick gallery of those people.

The red team members getting ready.

Not sure which neighborhood these guys represented.

Or these

Or these.

When I finally reached the city square, I could tell they were getting ready for something. At this point, I thought I had missed it all. Then I heard (from a side street) firework explosions. I headed from the square to where the parade would be coming from, and this is what I saw. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

What downtown looked like before the parade.

I heard the parade comiing so I headed up the side street where the explosions were coming from.

This curve was just a little up the street

But it was close confines.

All that smoke you see is coming from the fireworks and it was LOUD!

Costumed characters lighting off fireworks.

You can see how smoky it is.

The mascots of each neighborhood led their groups down the hill.

The mascots had fireworks attached to their costumes.

The fireworks would scream for a while and then explode.

It was beyond loud.

I will try and add a video so you can see how loud it was. Probably not on this post.

These people are placing the fireworks

And lighting them.

And now the bull is fully loaded.

When he snorts, they go off with their screams.

He rears up and they explode.

There were bulls, dragons…

…strange dragons.

Very strange dragons

Each mascot was followed by a band from that neighborhood.

All of them were followed by peopel with muskets that when they fired them, it was louder than the fireworks.

And another band.

Then the golden chicken

With a pigeon in its mouth.

Everyone cheered the pigeon while he danced.

The king golden chicken/

And there was a horse.

Kids would pose with the mascots before they started marching.

The horse would dance into the crowd.

And the bands play on.

Here comes the armadillo.

And his band

Did you know there were Spanish bagpipes? Neither did I.

Here comes the lion

Followed by some huge dolls.

And another band.

This is a sequence. The man on the real horse has drums…

…and recognizes a man in the crowd.

He decides to pull the man up on his horse.

Found out later, the man being pulled up…

…was the Mayor of Tarragona.

He had a heck of a time climbing on.

But he finally got there to the cheers of the crowd.

Hurrah!

Now he as to get off.

That may be hard than he thinks.

Friends try and help him off.

Quite the job

Ended up taking four people.

They finally got him down.

And our rider got his hat back.

More incredible figures in the parade.

They just kept coming.

People would greet each other on the steets like they hadn’t seen each other in years.

Everyone was so friendly.

Including this guy.

The red team gets ready to march.

Big heads.

The remains of the fireworks were everywhere.

Huge

This woman had no idea he was behind her.

More marchers.

Colorful costumes.

Spanish knights.

Ladies with swords.

Kids dancing.

Teens getting ready to dance.

And I turned to a side street and this is what it looked like. No one there.

Back around and ready to go again.

The teens dancing in the street.

Loved the action.

This festival was amazing.

OK, sorry to post so many photos, but it was a photographic bonanza where I got to combine travel photography with street photography, my two favorites. I spoke to so many other photographers during the parade. They would see my camera and comment on it, and I would ask about theirs. Or about what was happening in the parade. They all spoke some English, and I speak zero Catalan, but they were so hospitable, and they did their best to tell me about their city and the festival. This, to me, is what travel is all about. What an incredible time I spent shooting in this awesome city.

After I had shot all these photos, it was back to the ship (I actually shot more than 900 photos of the festival—aren’t you glad I didn’t put them all online?) I was actually back on the ship in time for lunch with Kathleen. Then we spent the afternoon with Kathleen napping and packing and my processing photos, posting the photos and writing about our adventures. Speaking of processing and writing, I have had a couple of people ask about what cameras and lenses I use and how I decide what to post and not to post. I promise to do a separate post about that when I have finished the cruise write-up.

Two more posts will finish this trip. One for our disembarkation and full day in Barcelona and another to sum it all up and review the cruise. We are sitting in Barcelona airport, ready to board our flights home. See you soon.

I saw a human pyramid once. It was very unnecessary.
—Mitch Hedburg