Storyline: Filling the gaps
Alex and I have been to Catalonia a few times. As mentioned in the Barcelona post, my first rendezvous with Catalonia was in July 1994.
We drove from Brussels, Belgium through France to Platja D’Aro, a seaside resort where we rented an apartment in a building close to the beach. My memories from this time are: extremely busy roads throughout Southern France and Catalonia, extreme heat triggering some old cars to go up in flames and a stop in the little town Vienne just south of Lyon France, because of all the delays. But I have no idea why we thought we could make it all the way in one day in mid July anyway. Although we did return in a day.
Because of the insanely busy, traffic-clogged roads, we only managed to visit Barcelona and Palamos, a town about 7km north of the resort. I also remember that it took us 6 hours to drive back to Platja D’Aro from Barcelona when in normal traffic it would only take about 90 minutes. Coming from manicured Belgium, our first exposure to the west, and staying in a well-manicured resort, I found Palamos too ruined, yet friendly. We loved Barcelona of course, and what we saw of the Costa Brava.
Catalan is a language closer to French than to Spanish, and since I was living and working in Belgium, my French was much better then. I could understand a lot. We enjoyed the small villages, the friendly people and the long beaches.
Ten years later in 2004, just before Xmas, which we’d spend in Amsterdam, Alex and I visited his aunt and uncle, Maureen & Steve, in Santa Cristina D’Aro. Dili, who was with us, and I were surprised to find that it was just some 6 km inland from Platja D’Aro.
One of the days we visited Platja de Sant Pol, which is walking distance to Platja D’Aro, and had dinner there. Apparently, it was Maureen and Steve’s favorite beach place. It wasn’t that warm, but people were still swimming and surfing.
Since then, every time we have visited them, we’ve gone for a stroll and lunch or dinner in Sant Pol. Sta Cristina D’Aro is a small community built around golf courses and has great hiking trails around.
We enjoyed the hike with Steve to the archeological site Cova d’en Daina, a dolmen dating back to the Neolithic era, up the hill from their place and not far from Cementiri de Romanya de la Sevla. There is where we also discovered the cork tree forest. It was my first-time seeing cork trees. We rented a car and for the next few days visited some places around. We did manage to visit Girona, a beautiful city with medieval and walled old town, and the capital of Girona province.
We stopped by La Bisbal and bought some pottery souvenirs, and managed to visit Salvador Dali’s museum in Figueres. This last one we’d revisit 10 years later.
In June 2014 we took the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse or high-speed train) from Paris to Figueres and return to Paris from Barcelona. It was our first fast train experience and to secure our seat selection by the window we had to engage an agency in the USA.
Being a fan of Salvador Dali since I first saw his art in Sofia in 1990, spending time in Figueres and Cadaqués was a dream come true. Back to 1994: our plans to visit Cadaqués then were ruined by the summer traffic. In 2004, still working, we didn’t have enough vacation time for it all. But I had planned our 2014 visit around Dali’s museums and his home at Port Lligat, a small village on a bay across a headland and walking distance from Cadaqués.
I had booked a few days in Figueres.
We re-visited Salvador Dali’s museum there and the next day took a local bus to Cadaqués early in the morning. The weather could not have been better.
Cadaqués has an interesting history with many famous poets, writers, musicians and artists (Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, René Magritte to mention a few) spending time there. It is a very pretty fishermen’s town and given the perfect weather, we decided that we’d walk to Port Lligat. The path started from the beach.
Walking on the shore we noticed one of these shacks that work as summer beach restaurants. Time for lunch. Asking for fresh catch, the waiter brought us 2 fishes that had just arrived from the boat. We pointed to one of them and asked for the name.
Dorada, they told us. Hmmm. It was grilled for us while we were sipping our red sangria and enjoying the view. The best fish we had ever had. Since then, everywhere we go near the Mediterranean we ask for Dorada. Sometimes we find imports from Greece in the grocery stores here and I make a nice dish. But it is not the same as those just caught an hour or so before being grilled.
The walk to Port Lligat and through Dali’s home and studio was enjoyable. But it was 2014, when over-tourism became a popular term.
We could not just visit the house museum. We had to join a group with English language interpreter which limited our time there. Still enough to walk around the grounds though.
The views from every corner (I don’t remember there being any actual corners – A) of the house were so spectacular that I had the feeling that anyone living in this house would become an artist. The air just calls for it. Glad we did it then. Not sure how things will look like after the pandemic is over.
Our latest visit to Maureen & Steve was in Nov. 2016. We landed in Barcelona and flew out of Spain from Madrid. Below are a few notes from that time:
Note:
When it comes to travelling and dual citizenship it gets so convoluted and confusing. Something like our Ontario Covid restrictions. If you were born or have citizenship in an EU country for example, many insist you can only enter it with a passport issued by that country. I have had this problem a few times not entering, but exiting Bulgaria for example. When we began travelling around the world, we thought the best approach was to use one passport. Makes sense for trackability doesn’t it? So, we used our Canadian passports everywhere. I didn’t even have a valid Bulgarian passport until one time I was told that next time they wouldn’t let me exit Bulgaria without one.
Nov. 14, 16
This is the first time we actually used our EU passports. We had to. Note that this was before Brexit, so Alex’s UK passport was still EU.
Everything was nice and speedy until we hit Barcelona airport. This is the first time we flew from outside the EU to Barcelona. I am not sure if this airport is equipped for handling that many flights arriving from outside the EU at the same time. We lined up for passport control. The line looked awfully long and didn’t move at all.
Meanwhile there was an EU track. We waited for 15 min in the non-EU line and it didn’t move at all. I tried to understand what was going on, but the officers guarding the EU gate I tried to talk to didn’t speak any English. One kept pointing to the line saying only “Canada, Canada”. After debating for a while, Alex says – why do we have EU passports if we don’t use them. The problem we are dealing is – if we don’t enter with the Canadian passports, we don’t have access to Canadian consular services should something major happen.
We looked at each other thinking – we are in Spain for God’s sake, what can go wrong? So, we pulled out our EU passports and walked out through the EU gates in no time. While walking out through the maze of empty cordoned lines for EU citizens, we passed by the thicker and thicker crowd on the other side for non-EU. We realized that it would have probably been 3 or 4 hours before we could have gotten out. Maureen and Steve would have not been able to wait for us that long.
They told us that 11 airplanes, including 3 from Toronto arrived almost at the same time. And there were only one or two officers processing all the crowds. So there, for once we used our EU passports out of our native countries (and Alex says after Bexit maybe the last time for him).
Note: Yep, this happened so no use of Alex’s UK passport entering the EU any more.
Nov. 15, 16
We’ve forgotten about this. In Spain we usually ate our big meal around 2 or 3PM. But we’d forgotten that the meal of the day that includes a choice from the appetiser menu, a choice from the main meal list and a choice from the dessert menu plus a drink (usually a glass of wine) was between 10 to 12 euros. This also fits with the Spaniards’ way of leaving. They still have siesta. Everyone goes home at noon or 1PM and goes back to work at 5PM. So, it makes sense they have their big meal of the day in the afternoon.
Today Steve and Maureen took us to an upscale restaurant on the beaches of St. Pol (part of Sant Feliu de Guíxols). The menu was pretty rich. The menu del dia was 18.5 euros (tax tips included). And I think one of the meals would have been big enough to feed the 4 of us. I had a toast with grilled vegetables and anchovies as appetiser. The so-called toast was as big as a small size pizza.
Add the veggies, olives and anchovies plus the side salad this was easily a meal for me and Alex. Then I had a rice with seafood. Gosh, this was huge – at least 3 cups of rice, lots of seafood and some black sauce. And then I had a Cream Catalan which is basically Creme Brulé, but 3 times the size of those served in Canada. Add all the coffees, water (this is something one pays for in Europe) and wine, the bill for the 4 of us was still under 80 euros. It costs us more than this for a few appetisers in Toronto.
In 2016 Steve & Maureen saw us off to the nearest train station in Caldes de Malavella. We took train to Barcelona, from where after a few days of enjoying our favorite city we’d take a train onwards to Madrid. It’s been almost 5 years since then. Can’t wait to go back.
If you go… (Travel tips and suggestions)
Most people only visit Barcelona and move on. But if you are in Catalonia and you love art, spare two – three days to visit Figueres and Cadaqués. You won’t regret it.
Public transportation is well organized. Even if you stayed in Barcelona you can take a train to Figueres. Spent a night there, visit Dali museum and then take a bus to Cadaqués. If you only want to visit Port Lligat, buy a return ticket to Figueres, especially in the summer months.
Port Lligat is about 1.6 km from Cadaqués, so the walk is well worth it. The views are spectacular. Girona, with its medieval architecture is also worth visiting. It is between Barcelona and Figueres, closer to the latter. Plenty of public transportation, but if you drive it’s still a great place to stop by.
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