EuroTrip - Day 63

Rome once more?

Oh not yet. Not in this EuroTrip for sure. I shall keep some thing pending for the next time too.
Then where should I go if I want to see a cathedral, aqueduct, circus, roman fora and an amphitheater in same town? If you are in Barcelona, the answer lies two hours away by train. The city of Tarragona offers you a date with Roman civilization right in the middle of this Catalan land. Before I forget, let me also list down that it has Gothic architecture and a beautiful sandy beach on offering too.

I am too bored of talking about this Roman and Gothic architectures. They are huge and glorious. And have a long history behind them. Lots of stories of love, hate and betrayals. War and peace. In all, a complete period drama. Still I think I would want to skip that portion for the day. You can check out the web if you want to hear those stories.

For me, this place was one more chance to learn about an industry called TOURISM. All throughout this EuroTrip, It has been impressive to notice how even the smallest of the cities are working really hard to promote tourism.

With the EuroZone in place, most of the boarders have virtually vanished. A well designed and maintained transportation system has made it easy for anyone to travel from one part to another. They boast of a train system where each and every station has the timetable available at each station giving you detail about the arrival and departure times for each and every train till the minutes. You can plan the entire journey at any station and will be able to book most of the tickets. Even a 8 minute difference between two connecting trains is really manageable. Trains run on time most of the times and if they are late you will be compensated in most of the cases. EuRail/InterRail passes are a boon if you are non-European and they make your travel really affordable.

Once you reach any city/town/village, the first thing on your mind would be to know about the place and get directions. A tourist information office is at your service in most of the cases. An English speaking officer gladly answers queries that you have got and will give you required literature. Maps, tour guides, brochures etc are available in plenty and in multiple language and they are really useful.

And now that when you know what you want to see, you might want to find out about the ways and modes of reaching there. There are city cards, travelers passes etc available to make it hassle free for you. You get free travel on local transportation (which by the way is mostly controlled by one authority independent of mode of transportation - metro, tram, bus, boats etc) and discounted entries to various tourist attractions.

I don't need to talk about the restaurants, pubs and shopping areas as they follow once a city is ready to attract so many outsiders. Interesting thing is that even there they have done very good to promote local art and cuisines.

Today in Tarragona there were two noticeable events.

1. The city tourism department seemed to be in a mode to track each of the tourist visiting this city. They collected extensive data about the tourists in terms of their nationality and the places they visited in this town. At entrance of every tourist attraction, the officer noted down a little information about us without bothering us with lot of hassles. For record, we were the first Indian tourists that many of the officers have met so far.

2. There was a promotional event by another state in Spain. The stage was set very well with use of latest technology and traditional music and cuisine at the same place. The enthusiasm with which the people concerned talked about and promoted their state was remarkable. It just gives you an idea the amount of effort everyone puts in promoting tourism here.

Today many of the European cities are using tourism as not just a way to earn money but also to promote themselves on world map. Influx of tourists had done wonders to these cities which have more global exposure than ever. It has also helped in preserving and promoting local arts and thus ensuring a longer life for them.

It's a win-win from any angle.

Can we do the same in India?

ps: For the record, we came back well in time to see Spain playing Argentina in a friendly match. We could not find a better place to see this match than the Irish pub on La Rambla. It was not the right place considering even Ireland was playing with France at the same time. So we ended up watching the Ireland match. It's fun to see a football match in an Irish pubs. These English people go really crazy. Good clean fun to end the day on a good note.