After our goodbyes to Mark & Mary, we traveled south down to our other favorite place on the Costa Brava: Calella de Palafrugel. It's a good thing that this blog only numbers its readers in the hundreds and not the thousands because I would hate for this one to get out there. If you are a social media influencer (unlike me who is a social media muddler) I forbid you to promote this place.
I have said more than once, if I had only six months to live, I would spend it right here at the Hotel Mediterrani, enjoying my morning cappuccino and expansive breakfast buffet of breads, meats, cheeses, fruits, eggs, etc.; then wiling away the day on my balcony in room 302, or on the beach drinking sangria, before strolling down the boardwalk to one of a couple of dozen terrific restaurants. If my condition improved, I would stay another six months.
Directly below the hotel, on our little beach nestled between rocky headlands; there was a little diving operation tucked under the cliff next to the beach cafe. We would see their boat come up to the beach in the morning and we thought "why not?" Well, the why not is because though we are experienced divers, Lori in particular; that was mostly back in our misspent youth. Nowadays, our skills are rustier than a cleat on the titanic. And the problem is very much like when you go to the doctor for your annual wellness check and you answer the question about how many units of alcohol per week you typically have. You don't want to lie, but... if you're honest, a whole bunch of new forms come out and you have to spend an extra 15 minutes reassuring your PCP that you were only kidding around earlier and that you definitely intend to do better in the future anyway.
It's similar with diving. Honesty always lands you in the "refresher course" which is expensive and dull. So we tend to fudge the facts a bit, leaning into our total history more than our recent history. This inevitably backfires when, say, "Seal Team Tom" attaches his tank onto his BCD backwards. Dead giveaway. But by then, the boat is ready to go. They usually just roll their eyes and hope that I don't stab myself with the dive knife (which I'm generally forbidden to carry anyway).
Our boat, the Poseidon, departed from the beach on a sparkling Mediterranean morning. There were no other divers that day, so we got our own private dive with a comely dive master named Victoria. We did the badass Jacques Cousteau move where we dropped over the side doing back flips into the water. The dive was magical. Victoria led us down to a bountiful reef rich with sea life. We saw octopi, barracuda, eel, spiny lobster, wavy fan coral of yellow and purple, and schools of fish everywhere.
After the dive, as we were putting our gear away, Victoria unselfconsciously removed her wetsuit top revealing that she was wearing nothing underneath it. God I love Spain.
Girona of Thrones
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
-Cersei Lannister
We stayed a week on Calella before veering inland again to Girona, a stunning medieval city that also served as a primary shooting location for GOT. They shot for about three weeks here in 2015. Mostly Season 6. Primarily Arya in Bravos, but with a touch of Jamie taking on the High Sparrow on the steps of The Great Sept of Baelor (above). Great stuff.
We did the tour. You feel like a dorky voyeur (and really, so much of tourism is exactly that) but, it was still pretty cool for a massive GOT geek like myself to see these places where some very important, completely fictional, historical events took place.
Michelin AllStars
Stylistically, Lori and I are not travel foodies. We usually wait until we are hungry and then hunt for something that looks good—hoping to get lucky. Sometimes we do, sometimes not. All in all, it works for us. We don't bother with the research and the reservations as I have enough on my plate already, what with hotels, museums, and TV show walking tours to sort out each day.
I did however make an exception for the restaurant Normal in Girona. I had read about it in some NYT travel thing a ways back and just booked it on a whim. And a good thing too because, unbeknownst to us, we were visiting Girona in the middle of their biggest annual festival—The Temps de Flors (The Time of Flowers). During the festival, the city swells to three times the normal population. You can barely walk down the narrow cobblestone streets much less score a reservation at Normal. (Tourists... so tiresome. I noticed a sign in front of a local's apartment that read: "Your luxury holiday, My daily misery—Tourists go home." So true. Who are all these people? Why can't they leave the locals, and me, alone to explore the very steps where Jamie Lannister once stood, in between takes?)
Anyway, culinarily, Lori and I are not what you would call classically trained. I doubt we've even ever been to a restaurant that was reviewed by Michelin, much less one that won a star. So we can be fish out of water. At least on the menu side. With the wine cellar, on the other hand, I'm something of an oenophile. I enjoy putting the fancy Euro waiters through their paces to see if they can keep up with me.
When our waiter asked what we would like from the wine list, I indicated our selection. He then patiently pointed out that I had just ordered a page number. I was on the first page of the wine book, where it listed the different wine regions and the page that they could be found on. Huh? I just thought it was a good price...
I recovered quickly with a: "Yes of course my good man. I was merely testing you." I think he bought it. Then he steered us to the wines-by-the-glass section, which he evidentially concluded would make things easier all around. The food, and the wine, were great. 3 Stars.
We wrapped up our time in Spain with a return to Barcelona. We still had a few more boxes to check there:
Park Guell: Another of Antoni Gaudi's impressive projects. He was hired to create a "park" (in the English style) to surround what was to be a development of 60 luxury homes on the edge of the city. Only 5 of the homes were ever built (the HOA restrictions of the day being rather onerous in this case) but Gaudi's vision for the 12 hectares of grounds is classic Gaudi, full of the inspiring and the whimsical.
Montseratt: "Serrated Mountain" in Catalan and home to the Santa Maria de Monseratt Abbey. It's a spectacular site and another very populuar tourist destination. Many people book bus tours to see this impressive place. We decided to go local and take the train.
Or, I should say trains plural. Bit complex when you add in the Metro, the regional train, the cog railway train and finally the funicular that delivered us to the mountain top. Here are the tickets that were required to complete the round trip journey for two.
Having had our fill of tiresome tourists the day before at Park Guell, we mostly igorned the Abbey itself along with the famous, but weird looking, Black Madonna or Virgin of Montserrat. (This was before medieval artists had really worked out how to do actual human likeness, or make babies look like babies. So Jesus is a little man baby. But the pilgrims come from far and wide anyway).
Instead, we took the funicular to the top of the mountains and did an inspiring hike to the top of Sant Jeroni.
Lastly, we caught up with friends Jessica, Soren, and Theo who had recently moved from California to Barcelona. They said they loved living in Barcelona (except for the tourists).
But they have a super cool apartment, that's for sure.
Next time, back in the USA.
Comments