Consistently sunny weather is such a blessing……
One rest day at Gavà, turned in to two rest days, but on Thursday afternoon Rodney got a little restless. “Let’s go into Barcelona and see the city at a different time of day”. It seemed like a grand idea. At 5:30pm the bus dropped us at the Plaça Catalunya and we strolled straight down La Rambla to Plaça Reial to buy tickets for a show. Doh! The ticket office was shut and didn’t open until 8pm. Ah, but you can buy tickets from the Palau de la Virreina, back up La Rambla. So we dashed up there and queued, only to find that you cannot buy tickets there for tonight’s show. Hmmmph! We went shopping.
Rodney bough a snazzy new pair of denim shorts, yes Ellea, his old one’s are going in the bin. A very tasty wok restaurant provided us with a nice Asian dinner, which I then followed up with a big cup of fresh fruit salad bought in the Mercat de la Boqueria, next door. And then we strolled back down La Rambla to Plaça Reial to try again. We queued for fifteen minutes and when the box office opened, yippee, there were tickets available. After all that effort, we settled in to our seats at 8:30pm in a dimly lit, small bar and Los Tarantos started their flamenco performance. Two interesting songs and two dramatic dances later, in just half an hour, and the show was over. It was only a taster and we knew that; I wasn’t sure that Rodney could sit through a two-hour dance production and we wouldn’t have been able to get a bus back to the campsite any later, so it suited us perfectly.
On Friday we did actually leave Barcelona and aimed to get a bit further north. We were a bit daunted by the need to get to the opposite side of Barcelona, but the system of roads, though not brilliantly signposted, did work well and we got through, round, under and over the city in no time at all. The lovely sunny weather continued to travel with us and we pulled up for a break at Tossa de Mar. The name was causing us a little concern, but the guide book said it was a nice resort and it turned out to be lovely.
We had tea and cakes at the southern end of the seafront and gazed out over the turquoise blue bay. Afterwards, we staggered up to the mediaeval walls of the Villa Vella, or Old Town, checked out the lighthouse and the remains of the Gothic church of St Vincenc and wandered back down through the cobbled streets to the newer part of town. It would have been nice to laze on the beach for a while, but our cossies were back in Eileen and anyway, we had a certain road to travel.
The road between Tossa de Mar and Sant Feliu de Guixols is up there with the roads around Positano and Sorrento. It clings to the cliffs and twists and turns its way along the coastline. We stopped halfway along to soak up the views and eat a fabulously ripe melon with jamon. Perfection. Late in the afternoon we pulled up at Camping Benelux, near Palamós and took ages picking a nice spot, which was rather silly as we were only stopping overnight. Hmmm.
The next morning, we managed to get going early and left the campsite at 8:40am; we haven’t done that in quite a while. Driving north, we passed fields of ripening corn and wheat, grapevines now looking ready to harvest, bales of hay and endless greenery everywhere. It felt like we had woken up in a different country; this was no longer the dusty dryness we had lived in for the last month.
We had a bit of a struggle finding our next stop; spotting only one signpost four villages away and then no more. There seemed to be no sign to the village of Púbol and I was sure we had driven too far. It turned out you have to drive further north, then drive south through the village of La Pera, and then further south to Púbol. Despite the circuitous route, we arrived in time for a 9:30am opening, to beat the anticipated crowds, only to discover that the Castell Gala Dalí in Púbol doesn’t open until 10am. Don’t you just love accurate guide books….!
In 1969 Salvador Dalí’s wife, Gala, accepted his gift of the fabulous 11th century castle of Púbol on one condition that: ‘You do not come to visit me unless by written invitation’. Interesting. And apparently his thoughts were quoted as: ‘This condition especially gratified my masochistic feelings and thrilled me. Gala became the impregnable castle that she had never ceased to be. Intimacy, and above all, familiarities diminish every passion. Rigour of feeling and distance, as demonstrated by the neurotic ceremony of courtly love, increases passion’. Seems it was a rather unconventional type of marriage, but then he was a bit zany and she apparently used to like the company of ‘a lot of young men’……
After his wife died in 1982, Dalí moved in to the castle and it became his last studio. Down in the dark crypt there are two tombs, Gala is in one, but the other is empty; Dalí is buried in Figueres.
Next stop, Girona. Another city with some mediaeval walls, plus a cathedral that has the widest Gothic nave in the world. Girona also claims to have more Michelin-starred restaurants than anywhere else on earth. El Celler de Can Roca is considered to be one of the world’s best and Rodney considered taking me there for our wedding anniversary, but then found out that you have to book a year in advance and we probably won’t be here next year……!
The Rio Oñar cuts through the centre of the city and we managed to park on the opposite bank, fairly close to the old town. A short walk had us crossing over on one of the many bridges which had lovely views each way of the tall, ochre coloured, 19th century houses that line the river. As always, we meandered around, climbing the ninety steps up to the cathedral, strolling part of the old city walls, smelling the roses in the Jardins dels Alemanys and eating lunch on the pavement in the old Jewish quarter of El Call. Then late in the afternoon, we drove out to Roses and checked in to Camping Salata, close enough to the beach to enjoy a bit more of what we love to do.
