The plot where the Central Market of Tarragona was built was not always the heart of the city. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was little more than a vacant lot on the outskirts of the Eixample, where Tarragona residents used to play football and cycle. The first football match in the city's history was played right there, in the velodrome that was then called Plaça del Progrés. Today, the square is named Corsini, in honor of the chief public works engineer of the city at the beginning of the century.

A spicy wine made in California awakened her mind and made her dive into her culinary memory linked to the garden since childhood. Back then she lived between Terrassa and Bagà. “It was very chemical, it had spicy sensations, but without a trace of pepper. We planted four varieties of chili pepper and dared to make one.” Isa Serra is the director of Vall Llach, but her connection with Priorat has been forged through l’Horta Colomer, a space for biodynamic crops in the heart of Porrera, where white carignan vines coexist with vegetables, spices, fruit trees, and geese.

The Tarragona-based filmmaker Anna M. Bofarull premiered on June 11 at the International Catalan Film Festival (FIC-CAT) in Roda de Berà her latest film, Rebel, a documentary with the 1-O referendum as a backdrop and starring Marta Torrecillas. Torrecillas was one of those attacked by the Spanish police, and images of her being dragged by officers down the stairs of the Pau Claris institute in Barcelona went viral, along with her claim that her fingers on one hand had been broken one by one.

I don't know if it happens to you too, but I have the feeling that, lately, there is a worrying lack of empathy. It's as if we see the people around us, but we don't really look at them. We go so fast that, too often, we forget that everyone carries their own baggage.

When things get complicated, many companies react in the same way: they look for ways to reduce costs. Suppliers are renegotiated, hours are reduced, cheaper materials are sought, or promotions are run to remain competitive. It's an understandable reaction. But for some time now, I've been wondering if we're not asking the wrong question.

The Tarragona-based journalist Enric Garcia Jardí (1992) wrote a report a couple of years ago in Ara Diumenge about the maquis fighter Joan Busquets Verges, born in Barcelona in 1928. Busquets was arrested by the Civil Guard and spent twenty years in prison after his death sentence was commuted. After weeks of living with the former guerrilla fighter in his Normandy home, the Tarragona-based journalist has published the book El maqui que encara lluita, in which he reviews the long life of this anarchist fighter who still visits Catalonia from time to time.

“I could ask my family for money, but you come here to earn money, not to ask for it,” explains Andrea Tristancho. She is 32 years old and a couple of years ago decided to leave Boyacá (Colombia) to try her luck abroad. Restless, curious, and eager to make her way. In the suitcase with which she arrived in Madrid in October 2024, she carried a student visa with a work permit, in addition to a degree in spatial design and also in commercial and financial administration. In the Spanish capital, she also took an MBA in Business Management to further broaden her education.

This Tuesday, the bankruptcy of the cooperative of l'Aldea, in Baix Ebre, began to be judged at the Audiència de Tarragona. Fourteen years ago, this bankruptcy caused 408 creditors to lose their savings, with disastrous consequences for the entire town. Although the cooperative's accounts apparently functioned correctly – in fact, they passed an audit by the Generalitat a year before the bankruptcy–, the creditors discovered on December 1, 2011, that there was a deficit of 6.97 million euros, 4.6 million of which were their savings. During the trial, which will last two months, 293 people were summoned as witnesses, although fewer will end up testifying, as during the preliminary hearings, held this morning, compensation agreements have already been reached.

The Ebrenc Litterarum Fair of Literary and Book Events will be held this year between May 28 and 31 in Móra d’Ebre, and will combine book presentations, exhibitions, and literary events. Since last year, the director of Litterarum has been Lluís-Xavier Flores, who has promoted the search for complicity throughout Catalan-speaking areas by opening sub-seats in other towns and cities, such as Morella, Calaceit, Tortosa, or Reus. “One of the challenges is to attract more programmers to the fair and for it to become again the fair of its beginnings, considered strategic by the Institution of Catalan Letters”, states Flores.

The Trapezi Circus Fair celebrates its 30th anniversary, reaffirming an increasingly clear commitment: to break the established framework and move beyond the codes of classic circus to become a showcase for contemporary European circus. The festival vindicates hybrid languages, social perspective, and new scenic formats that connect with theatre or dance. An evolution that may divide opinions, but which confirms Trapezi as a cultural event with its own identity and a future vocation, turning Reus into an open-air creative laboratory.

L’Hospitalet de l’Infant will become from May 29 to 31 the epicenter of jazz in Catalonia with the celebration of the first edition of Hospi Jazz, a new festival promoted by the Department of Culture of the Vandellòs and l’Hospitalet de l’Infant City Council, which is born with the aim of consolidating itself as a reference cultural event on the Costa Daurada. For three days, this town will host concerts and activities mainly dedicated to classic jazz and dixieland, with the participation of prominent bands from the Catalan and Spanish jazz scene.

Tomorrow marks the start of the fifth edition of the Toca’m festival in Tortosa, which maintains its commitment to placing twelve pianos in the streets, distributed across different parts of the city. There will be a total of 28 venues, including new locations such as the Episcopal Palace, the Puríssima convent, the courtyard of the Despuig palace, and the Sant Joan advance posts. The festival will run until next Sunday. Toca’m also reinforces its territorial focus with activities in Flix on April 25th and in Cases d’Alcanar on July 4th.

In the last supplement of ARA Camp de Tarragona, last April, we published an interview with the harpist from Espluga de Francolí, Anna Amigó Vilalta, just two days before she participated in the semifinal of the World Harp Competition, in the Dutch town of Utrecht. Her proposal, very different from the rest of her thirteen competitors, convinced the jury and she became one of the three finalists. The next day she achieved second place in what is considered the world championship of the harp.

There are fewer and fewer people willing to dedicate themselves to teaching. And, honestly, it's hard to be surprised. Being a teacher today is much more than entering a classroom and imparting knowledge. It is managing conflicts, enduring constant pressures, and working in a system that often seems to turn its back on them.For some time now, the school has been undergoing a profound transformation. Teachers no longer just educate: they also take on social and emotional issues that were previously outside the classroom. All this, while having to coexist with bureaucracy, lack of resources, and a growing sense of burnout.The most worrying thing, however, is the progressive loss of respect for this profession. There are still those who repeat the easy discourse that "they work little" or that "they have many holidays," ignoring the invisible hours of preparation, meetings, and corrections. Meanwhile, their demands remain the same: better working conditions, decent salaries, and a real commitment to public education.And now, given the increase in conflicts in schools, proposals are emerging such as incorporating plainclothes Mossos d'Esquadra into schools. Perhaps what education needs is not more surveillance, but more support, resources, and listening. Because when teachers and professors get tired of fighting alone, it is society as a whole that ends up losing.

El Camp de Mart will be the venue on the last weekend of May for the 5th edition of the Teta Festival with the objective of reaffirming itself as much more than a festival: it is a city project, a space that has managed to grow, evolve and attract complicity through feminism, culture and celebration.

Once again, the Camp de Mart Festival arrives, with around twenty shows for all tastes and ages: musical proposals of large and small format, circus and dance in various locations in Tarragona, from June 26 to August 14. Luz Casal, Rodrigo Cuevas, Lila Downs, Yerai Cortés, Maika Makovski, or the company Mal Pelo, among others, are some of the highlighted names in a program made up of an opera, 14 concerts, 4 circus shows, and one dance show.

Casa Rufo opened just before Easter and I already hear diners saying "it's delicious", while confirming that "all dishes enter the kitchen clean". Lleonard Cardona Rufo is a self-taught cook; he has learned from his parents, who first worked in a butcher shop and then at Casa Jesús, in Cases d’Alcanar. In the same place, but with a completely renewed concept, he insists on saying that he has opened a wine bar, but that you can also "eat" there. "In the "terreno", we always eat very well, from the garden, from the sea... and when you hear "delicious", you can rest assured", he shares. "My parents were artists. They made breakfasts, a menu for workers, and à la carte, both at midday and at night", he recalls. He has copied their format a bit, without lunches. At Casa Rufo, he offers a hearty breakfast, vermouth, and small plates at night. There is often a queue because, for the moment, he does not take reservations. He is open from Thursday to Sunday.

The same year that Antoni Gaudí learned —too late— that one had to be careful when crossing a street in Barcelona, in Cambrils we started buying in a covered market. It was 1926, and the coincidence is no metaphor, but it is not entirely innocent either: that year Catalonia was beginning the end of one era and opening another, and Cambrils, in the manner of El Camp, too.

A group of researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona were on the roof of the Palau Güell, on Carrer Nou de la Rambla in Barcelona, and noticed the twenty chimneys that crown this Antoni Gaudí building, recognized by Unesco as a World Heritage Site. Observing them, the question arose. Do they work or are they just ornamental? "It could be that they were just for show or a way to boast," explains Albert Samper, professor at the Higher Technical School of Architecture, who recalls that chimneys were a status symbol, as it implied that buildings that had them had heating, a luxury that at the end of the 19th century only the wealthy classes could afford. But it could also be that the chimneys responded to their main function and were capable of extracting smoke. Gaudí did not write anywhere whether the original chimneys could actually work.