Best €15.50 Tasting Menu Ever, So Far: Ares In Tarragona

After the cathedral we headed for a restaurant we had read about, Ares. What attracted us initially was the guidebook description of it as Modernista. That turned out to be true, sort of, but the food, traditional Catalonian, was at least as good as the decor. As it turned out, it is a mom and pop restaurant--she cooks, he serves--and he designed the place 12 years ago. We had the five-plate tasting menu.

Beautiful old city

Ares restaurant

Interior views

The meal started off with bread and olives, and the included
wine

Then, the beginning of the five plates...first, a salad

Then a creamy squash soup

Then couscous with chicken and carrots

Then the sardines (I got all the sardines)

Then the pork medallions with patatas (what was left of them)

Then--we were tired of flan--cacao coated almonds

And coffee

Then more of the decor

It was early for lunch...1:30, so we were the first customers
of the day

Neat place

Exterior wall, with original column, arch

Tarragona Cathedral, 2

Continuing our visit to Tarragon's cathedral...

Wandering a bit, here we are behind the altar...

And now in the treasury; has anyone ever retold the St. George story from the
dragon's point of view?

"Put your snout under the spout where the Gospel comes out"

Great preservation all around

Sumo double-flutist, back in the cloister

Best funny face

The rats' funeral procession...they're carrying a dead cat

But the cat then springs to life...the theological point is lost on me; something
about resurrection?

Beautiful and beautifully maintained cloister

Tower from within the cloister

Killing the three guys

More interesting capitals

Celtic, yes?

A brother trying to escape?

Now in the cathedral's museum (!); mosaic from a nearby villa

Sarcophagus of Apollo and the 9 Muses

Moorish arch

Nice Christian sarcophagus of a couple gazing at each other

The museum...a large barrel vault

Tarragona Cathedral, 1

Tarragona has a beautiful cathedral, begun in the 12th, partly Romanesque, mostly Gothic, built on top of a Roman temple, a Visigothic curch, a mosque...the usual Iberian pedigree. Originally a monastery, it has a cloister that is one of the most beautiful we have seen.

The cathedral complex is hemmed in by so many buildings it's hard to get a decent
exterior view

Room for four more apostles...the facade was never finished

Built-in sarcophagus

The archivolts have been left to the birds

For me, hope arises for funny faces within

"I can't believe I'm sharing top billing with a dog!"

Inside: here's one Spanish cathedral that got the memo from the Council of Trent
about taking down the screen; stem to stern view; big church

A bit of the elevation, choir, organ

The nave is fairly plain; it's in the numerous side chapels that one sees the Baroque
extravagance

Here and there, bits of the old paint job

St. Centaur on one of the capitals

In the chapel of St. Helen (Constantine's mom)

Restoring a huge but unidentified painting

More old paint job

Dome

Dusting, polishing the choir

Have these all been sanctified? we wondered

Altar

Now in the gorgeous cloister

Holy cow

Beautiful old floor throughout