{"id":4090,"date":"2021-08-22T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarragonaexperience.com\/2019\/08\/22\/the-port-and-the-serrallo-district-the-essential-maritime-experience-of-tarragona\/"},"modified":"2022-05-27T12:29:37","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T10:29:37","slug":"the-port-and-the-serrallo-district-the-essential-maritime-experience-of-tarragona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarragonaexperience.com\/en\/2021\/08\/22\/the-port-and-the-serrallo-district-the-essential-maritime-experience-of-tarragona\/","title":{"rendered":"The Port and the Serrallo district \u2013 the essential maritime experience of Tarragona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"El<\/a>
El Serrallo. Photo: Manel Antol\u00ed<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever wondered how the Port and the Serrallo neighbourhood came into being?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The maritime district of Tarragona<\/strong>, right next to one of the biggest seaports in the Mediterranean<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a hive of gastronomic, cultural, associative and economic activities which have mainly revolved around fishing and the sea since time immemorial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article gives you some tips for having an authentically maritime experience in the fishing district of Tarragona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little history: the origins of Serrallo and the Port<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is widely known that Tarragona<\/strong> has a long-standing fishing tradition that has been documented since the thirteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fourteenth century, the first references appeared to the botigues de mar<\/em> (\u2018the wooden shacks where the fishermen lived, which they also used for storage\u2019) on Miracle Beach<\/a><\/strong> and, later on, near the mouth of the River Francol\u00ed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the eighteenth century, most of the people who worked in the fishing sector lived in the city, in the Part Alta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poorest among them, however, still lived in shacks in the area known at that time as Platja Llatzeret<\/em>, in front of Carrer del Mar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More modern changes in the neighborhood<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the Port\u2019s Works Committee planned the construction of the Marina district in the Part Baixa (lower part) of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, however, that we can point to the beginning of Tarragona\u2019s fishermen\u2019s district: El Serrallo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction of the Tarragona-Reus-Montblanc-Lleida railway line and the expansion of the Port of Tarragona<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Made it imperative to move the fishermen\u2019s houses from Carrer del Mar to the neighbourhood\u2019s current location, between the Port, the railway line and the area around the River Francol\u00ed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serrallo morphology<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When the neighbourhood first arose during the second half of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It started to be known as El Serrallo<\/em><\/strong>, which means harem in Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes from the Italian word serraglio<\/em> (\u2018closed, harem\u2019), which, in turn, stems from the Latin serrare <\/em>(\u2018to close\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reached us, via Turkish, from the Persian word sarai<\/em> (\u2018palace\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the true origin of the name has always been unknown. Historians ascribe it directly to the Hispano-Moroccan War (1859 \u2013 1860).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Name hypothesis<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Below are four hypotheses taken from the essay by Vicen\u00e7 M. Garcia on the origin of the name Serrallo<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n