Tarragona Roman amphitheatre by the sea
— stone seats facing the Mediterranean for nineteen centuries.
Not only on a wall.
Tarragona Roman amphitheatre by the sea, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The amphitheatre sits below the old upper city of Tarragona, the stone seating cut into the slope above a small curving beach. Built in the second century when Tarraco was the capital of Hispania Tarraconensis, the arena held about fourteen thousand. From the upper tiers the Mediterranean fills the view. Inside the oval the foundations of a twelfth-century church mark where the bishop was burned in 259.
The place, in three passes.
The Amfiteatre Romà de Tàrraco was built in the second century AD on the coastal slope below the upper Roman city, with a capacity of roughly fourteen thousand spectators. Tarragona, then Tarraco, served as the capital of the imperial province of Hispania Tarraconensis under Augustus, the largest Roman province in the Iberian peninsula. The amphitheatre and the wider archaeological ensemble, including the Roman walls, circus, forum, and aqueduct, were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. The arena is unusual among surviving Roman amphitheatres for sitting directly above the open sea.
The seating tiers are cut into the natural slope, with the upper cavea built up in local sandstone above the rock. Two later religious buildings stand inside the arena floor: the foundations of a Visigothic basilica dated to the sixth century, and the partial walls of the Romanesque church of Santa María del Miracle built in the twelfth. Both mark the spot where Bishop Fructuosus and the deacons Augurius and Eulogius were burned alive on January 21, 259, an event recorded in the early Christian Passio Fructuosi.
The amphitheatre is reached by a short walk from the Rambla Nova along the Passeig de les Palmeres. Entry is included in the combined Tarraco archaeological ticket, which also covers the Roman walls, the circus, and the Praetorium. The arena is open most days; light is best in the early morning before the upper tiers fill with shadow from the upper city. Tarragona is about an hour south of Barcelona by direct Renfe regional train, with the AVE high-speed station at Camp de Tarragona ten minutes north of the old city by taxi.
