April 1
Air France 8991 Salt Lake City - Paris
Air France 1648 Paris - Barcelona
April 2 - 4
Hotel Plaça de la Font, Tarragona, Spain
April 5 - 6
Hotel Market, Barcelona, Spain
April 7 - 12
Can Vespa rental apartment, Llebre 4, Girona, Spain
Can Vespa contact: Brigit & Jaume (Brigit speaks English), phone +34 977 677090571 or
e-mail brisual@gmail.com
e-mail brisual@gmail.com
April 13
Fonda Cal Blasi, Alenya, 11-13, Montblanc
Carles Blasi, Carme Carrera
April 14-15
Hotel Cresol, Sta Barbara 16-18, Calaceite
Rosa
April 16 - 18
Hotel La Fonda Moreno, San Nicolas 12, Morella
April 19 - 21
Hostal Venezia, Plaza del Ayuntamiento 3, Valencia
Sunday, April 22
Air Europa 1005 Valencia-Paris
Air France 8990 (Delta 89) Paris-Salt Lake City
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April 3, 2012
Jerome and I are once again immersing ourselves in Spanish culture for a few weeks, this time focusing on Catalunya, Aragon, and Valencia. This trip is a bit different from previous visits, in that we are returning to several places we have been before, we are using public transportation more than usual, and we are meeting up with our good friends, Sue and Brent Smith, for a few days in Barcelona and Girona.
We flew out of Salt Lake with no problem, just beating the crowds as the annual LDS Conference drew to a close. The airport was practically empty when we arrived three hours early for our flight to Paris (our philosophy is "better early than stressed", plus it was snowing); but by the time we boarded, the place was packed. The flight was comfortable and uneventful, and arrived a bit early into CDG airport despite an air traffic controllers' strike. The latter did, however, delay our departure for Barcelona by an hour and ten minutes, during which time we sat in the plane on the tarmac. Everyone was remarkably resigned / philosophic about it, perhaps in part because Barcelona was the final destination for pretty much everyone on board.
Once into Barça, we had an hour's wait for a bus to Tarragona, but the time went by quickly when we met Sr and Sra Sanchez, who were waiting for the same bus. A friendlier and more talkative couple I can hardly imagine. They live winters and summers in Holland, and springs and autumns in Silau, just south of Tarragona. They were a font of information about the area, and it was a delightful encounter. We parted with warm wishes on all sides.
It was a major contrast, in our jetlagged state, to sit in a comfortable bus for the hour trip south to Tarragona rather than negotiate the roads and toll booths in a rental car. It was a pleasant short walk from the bus station to our Hotel Plaza de la Font (where we also stayed in the fall of 2011), and by 7 p.m. we were settled comfortably in our room overlooking the plaza. Only a 26-hour journey from home to here!
To celebrate our safe arrival, we went on a two-stop tapas crawl, starting at the Iberico (as in the famous and delicious cured ham which is to me the essence of Spanish eating), where we washed down a few servings of jamón with a rich regional Priorat wine. Heading back toward the hotel, we encountered Lola's (!) tapas bar, offering such temptations as roasted red peppers with grilled tuna, fried calamari with lemon, and balls of rolled chocolate for a sweet. This was more than enough for a late dinner, and we cut short the crawl, and called it a day.
Despite early morning showers (but we are right on the Mediterranean and temperatures are mild), we headed out for coffee and pastries this morning, and renewed our acquaintance with Tarragona. This city was originally Tarraco, a Roman port and seat of government, and it is peppered with well-preserved Roman ruins. We spent much of our last visit exploring them, and this time we are free to delve into other back alleys and hidden quarters. We wandered and roamed, with a stop along a coastal promenade to appreciate the sea stretching eastward, and fantasized about renting an apartment for a couple of months' stay sometime in the future.
It is now late afternoon, and we are resting after the main meal of the day, which we ate at La Cuineta, a ten-table restaurant in the Casco Antiguo, the historic section of town. Excellent dishes included skewered grilled vegetables, artichoke hearts and mussels in a wine sauce, confit of duck with prunes and wild mushrooms, and grilled fresh calamari. House flan for dessert. Yum!
Our goal tonight (after some more tapas) is to stay awake for the soccer game between Barcelona and Milan, which will determine who advances to the semifinals for the European Cup. Whether our internal biorhythms will cooperate remains to be seen.
This is a long message, but I am out of practice at distilling down our travel activities, and I am thrilled to be back in Spain. Expect further missives over the coming days, plus photos, and feel free to use the delete key if I get too long-winded! All the best from both of us. We would love to hear from you should you feel so inclined.
Saludos,
Nancy
April 4, 2012
Day two in Spain, again a damp and cloudy morning. As if it weren't enough just to be here, yesterday brought three more memorable encounters. The first was with the Argentinean shopkeeper of a small gallery of local ceramics. She moved to Tarragona fourteen years ago because she likes the small-city tranquility and wanted to escape the "chaos" of Buenos Aires life. Her gallery was once a cooperative of local artists' work, but the organizer in whose workspace it was housed retired, and she converted the cooperative into a shop. We had fun admiring different pieces and hearing about their creators.
We had promised our waiter at Ibérico (the jamón place) that we would return, and we were rewarded for our fidelity. We followed his recommendation to try lomo rather than jamón, lomo being the loin cut rather than the leg. A dryer and different taste, which of course we had to compare with a sampling of jamón. We decided that we prefer the latter -- kind of like comparing fine cognacs -- and our waiter decided that we should also taste an Ibérico chorizo seasoned with pimentón and an Ibérico salami seasoned with black pepper, both on the house. I asked for a caña (a small draft beer ubiquitous at tapas bars) but was told firmly but gently that a caña does not go with Ibérico. So, darn it, I had to have glass of Priorat wine again.
Mindful that the Barcelona-Milan soccer match was probably about to start, we headed back to hotel, only to find the main avenue blocked to allow a Holy Week procession to pass on its way to the cathedral. Three floats depicting Holy Week events were accompanied by several small drum corps, a couple of brass bands, and an octet of wind instruments, plus children and adults carrying torches in the dusk. All participants were elaborately costumed, some in Roman-style tunics and leggings (complete with metal helmets and shields), others in ecclesiastic-style robes, and a few with black pointed hoods that covered their faces except for eyeholes. Wow. Quite a pageant, and quite an end to our first day in Spain.
We ended up in the pub next door to our hotel, where we watched Barcelona win their match 3-1 to advance to the semifinals for the European Cup. Go Barça! And so to bed. More adventures await us today, I am sure.
Hasta luego,
Nancy
April 11
Costa Brava
We said a sad goodbye to Brent and Sue as they left for the RENFE train station yesterday afternoon. It is strange to think that they are stateside by now, via Barcelona and New York, and our little apartment seems empty without them.
We bolstered our spirits last night by settling into a little tapas bar/restaurant around the corner (named, oddly enough, Patchwork) with about six tables in each of two rooms, but more importantly with a big-screen tv in each room and an owner who is a Barça fan. The game against Getafe, tenth in the league, started at 9 p.m., and Barça's 4-0 win pushed *them* past Real Madrid into first place. Apologies to all you non-soccer fans. Go Barça!
This morning we picked up our rental car, a gray VW Polo -- cute, comfortable, and easy to drive and park -- and headed out of Girona eastward to the Costa Brava some 20 miles away. This section of the Mediterranean coast stretches from the French border down to Blanes, just north of Barcelona, and is rugged in the north where the Pyrenees come down but has famously beautiful beaches in the south, as many Brits have discovered. The section we explored is in the middle, with both bluffs and beaches (photos to come).
Immediately as we left Girona, we entered beautiful agricultural country, fields decked out in spring green, interspersed by small woodlands, acres of mustard in full bloom lined with brilliant red poppies along the road. Stone farmhouses and compounds were softened by fruit trees laden with blossom. We crossed the coastal hills and descended in Sant Feliu de Guixols, a charming small port town on a tiny bay with a lovely and well-tended beach. There were plenty of small hotels but little evidence of non-Spanish tourists. The clouds over Girona had been left behind and we had glorious sunshine and a mild seaside breeze. Altogether a charming place, and a nice contrast to inland Girona.
We worked our way north through more small towns, some more touristy than others, and a few clearly more upscale in their architecture and infrastructure. Platja d'Aro offered apartment compounds down to the beach itself, and the highway through town was lined with shops, restaurants, shops, cafeterias, and shops. No quaintness here, just your basic beach vacation amenities. We watched a young girl dance for her grandfather on a small plaza. Palamós reminded us strongly of the Monterey-Carmel area of California, though on a smaller scale. On the point of land capping the north side of La Fosca's cove, the remains of a 12th century castle (built atop a Roman villa, itself atop an Iberian settlement) dominated. Alas, I did not get a photo of it. Calella appeared to be the creme-de-la-creme of exclusive settlements, with small estates behind high gated fences.
This is already long, but I have to tell you about our last two discoveries, since both of them were both serendipitous and delightful. We drove up to the headlands south of Calella, just because, and we stumbled upon a botanical garden, the Gardens of Cap (cape) Roig. This must be the Hearst Castle of the Costa Brava, though smaller and less austentatious than the California estate. A Russian aristocrat and his English wife bought the 42-acre property in 1927, built their little castle, and created a beautiful setting consisting of some 1,000 species of plants and open-air sculptures by both Spanish and international artists threaded together with paths crisscrossing the hillsides. There is now an annual music festival on the grounds, and the rest of the year they are open to the public. Now, in early spring, the gardens are beautiful, and the vistas out over the Mediterranean are breathtaking.
Finally, as hunger pulled us back to Girona and we headed inland, we passed one of those little brown signs that pop up in this country and usually lead to fascinating archaeological sites. Ullastret did not disappoint: a major Iberian outpost dating from the 7th century BC(!), the ruins were excavated in the 1930s and are preserved now as part of Spain's heritage. This was a thriving agricultural and trade center for the pre-Roman civilization of the peninsula, which traded with the Phoenicians and the Greeks. The Romans passed by the town, having more interest in their roads further inland at Girona, and Ullastret was abandoned rather than built over. A medieval castle did come along in the 13th century, but it lay lightly on the top of the hill and didn't disturb the ruins under its feet.
It was a fulfilling end to a fulfilling day. We parked our car in the public lot in Girona, and headed for "lunch" at 3:30, discovering a lovely new wine bar a few blocks from our apartment that also serves a full midday meal. I had grilled vegetables and sliced duck breast; Jerome had a tartine of vegetables followed by a fish whose identity we still don't know except that the name in Spanish sounds like the Japanese maguro, and the waiter said it was related to tuna.
We have rested this afternoon, gone out for a couple of tapas (calamari, minced beef wrapped in a skin of potato, Russian salad), and will call it a day as soon as the laundry finishes.
