Spain - The beginning
¡Buenas dias!
So, as I mentioned yesterday our border crossing into Spain was an
uneventful affair. As soon as we passed over the border (at the top of
a mountain) the condition of the road deteriorated and suddenly we
were coming down a mountain on bumpy roads with the mountain very
close to my side of the car and cars coming in the other direction.
Let me just say that I was gripping the seat quite firmly. Tom though
is a good driver and we made down the mountain, only to go up another
mountain.
After the border crossing I got my phone out to try GPS in Spain. I
had already used it in Paris a few times, but now we were going to
rely on it for navigating within towns. So, I punched in the address
for our next stop and we awaited further directions from Agnetha.
Our first stop in Spain was Castello d'Empuries a little town near
Figueres that was once the medieval capital of the region. After a few
hiccups with the GPS (I had it set to pedestrian mode, not car mode so
it was telling us to make funny turns) we navigated to the town via
the backroads. However, once we were in the town it was a different
story. Medieval towns has medieval streets. Tiny little streets that a
single horse and carriage can traverse. Driving though these streets
is not a pleasant experience, especially when they are a maze of one
way streets. Eventually though we found somewhere to park the car and
walked to the hotel.
The hotel in Castello d´Empuries was really nice, with the rooms
looking out over the town square to the very medieval ayuntamiento
(town hall). We ate at the hotel´s restaurant, which serves
predominantly traditional Catalan fare; we had gazpaxo soup, duck
casserole and would have had ´creme catalan´ if we could have fitted
it in.
Despite our Spanish classes, we really couldn´t really understand a
lot of what was on the menu or what people were saying, as Catalan is
really quite different to Castillian. Along with an abundance of X´s,
the language seems to substitute words randomly for French, or for
completely different words altogether.
The town itself wasn´t all that big. They did have two big churches
though and an abundance of street cats. I made the mistake of talking
to one of the these cats in the morning and he followed me around for
most of our walk around town. We eventually lost him when he was
distracted by some birds. I´m not allowed to talk to any more cats.
From Castello d´Empuries, we followed yet another windy road over the
mountains to the seaside town of Cadaques. Quite a few people, as well
as the Lonely Planet, said how great this village is, though on first
impression it seemed to be little more than shirtless middle-aged
English men on scooters. Admittedly it was overcast, and still early
in the morning (11am) so we decided to try to walk around the headland
to Port Lligat, Salvidor Dali´s home for many years. Unfortunately the
track only went three-quarters of the way around, so we had to turn
around and walk back. By this stage, the sun had come out and I could
see what people see in Cadaques; the white houses cascading down the
hill to the sea is definitely picturesque. The coastline is quite
spectacular as well. Big slabs of granite and slate that have been
uplifted by seismic activity.
After our hike, we were very hot and abit sunburnt so we got a drink
and jumped back in the car for the drive to Barcelona.
