Costa Brava is the coastline along the Mediterranean Sea in Spain. This is our last stop - hard to believe so we have splurged on a hotel on the coast in a room with a large terrace overlooking the sea. When Jeff had shared with our hosts in St Jean de Luz our plans for the rest of our trip, they had gotten quite excited about this stop. At one time, they owned a 2nd home here and knew our hotel and the area. Speaking French, the husband was all bubbly about the area and about the Cami de Ronda. I picked up some of what he said, and he is right this area is gorgeous and the hotel is special. Our drive here had been heavily 2 lane mountain roads, so we had stopped at a local restaurant when we saw one and had a traditional large multi course lunch which means we are in search of a small dinner. But only after we open a bottle of wine and enjoy our terrace some and explore the area a little bit too.
our hotel from the seaside
our terrace view
Cami de Ronda
Part of the route (walking path) is literally the back of the hotel - or is it front since that is the sea?? We walk on it 5 - 10 feet and find an opening with a stairway down to the beach. We laugh because while the hotel said it was small this is minute by our standards! Yet here we are on a Mediterranean Sea beach. When we walk a little further, we find larger beaches nearby all quite popular. It is summer and there is a heat wave, so the beach is quite popular. We hear all sorts of European accents around us - not much English. The path is sandy at times and full of steps at times as we go up and down the side of the coast. This is the coast that you see pictured for Italy or France - lots of large rocks broken up by small sandy beaches. The water is quite clear and looks inviting.
Cove beyond where we are staying
Two coves from our hotel
Can you find the house nestled on the cliff?
Spain loves tunnels we even have a couple on this path
Dali Art Museum
For our first full day here, there is a sailing ship in the sea by us, so we book an afternoon snorkeling trip only to have them cancel because it is too windy for them to bring the boat in safely. We reschedule for Sunday afternoon (5pm is afternoon here) and replan our day. New plan we head to a neighboring town of Figueres which is where Salvador Dali lived while in Spain. We are going to his theater and museum. I kept thinking it was a weird name for a museum until I learned that the museum is in an old theater. Dali put all of this together himself. It is quite an interesting experience. There is artwork that he did but also, he decorated (?) the theater so it is the show too. One of the first things you see is an old Cadillac parked in a courtyard with a skeleton for a driver and a couple in the backseat and lots of flowers. This is just the beginning. Above the car, there is a boat hanging from a ceiling with blue glass (?) droplets beneath and mockup of underwater sea then I notice other things that makes me think of Davey Jones locker from pirate stories. There is another room where he did a take-off on all the ceilings painted with angels that you see so much of in European palaces. Another room is an exhibition of an artist who always includes rocks as the central theme of his artwork. It is simply put an interesting couple of hours.
outside of the building
the car and boat in a plaza
Note the man’s portrait on the left, at a different angle you see a naked women from behind
When you enter the room, you see a sofa in the shape of lips and then you notice other objects. But when you walk up a few steps to a platform only then do you see this installation in its entirety
a piece from the "rock" artist
Dali's painted cieling
Jeff and I really liked all the clocks that look like they have melted
Old town of Girona - Game of Thrones Site
Girona is the largest city in the area (well Barcelona is close too) and is known for tourism too. Jeff knew that Game of Thrones had filmed there some so when he saw a tour built around the Game of Thrones sites, we had a plan for our day trip to Girona. The tour group was 2 couples, and I was the only one who was NOT a Game of Thrones fan. Even as a non-fan I enjoyed the tour. Our guide pointed out sites and then talked about how they built the scenes for the show - maybe covering electrical wires or man whole covers. We started at the cathedral and then wandered the old town from there.
This Cathedral had its religious decor covered up so it could become the Great Sept of Baelor in GOT
Our guide showed us an images from the film so we could see how the film portrayed what we were looking at
Remaining city wall is over 1K long
pictures from inside the cathedral
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a popular local treat our guide told us about and we had to try some!
Dinner Show
Before we got to town, our hotel had reached out to let us know that they were having a special event while we were there and would we like to come. They were hosting a multi-course dinner in conjunction with an 80s based band. We said yes and had a very nice evening. As the pictures below show!
Click on the video below
To see how everyone loved the show
SV Mar a la Vista
Our snorkeling trip was rescheduled to Sunday afternoon to them or late afternoon/evening to us. The ship is an old sailing ship that has been lovingly restored. He does 3 or 6 hour sailing tours from Costa Brava during the summer and then in winter he goes down to Barcelona and offers all day tours looking for whales in the Mediterranean Sea. Today, the captain's wife, young son and dog are along too so the wife keeps a running conversation of the sites we are passing along the waterfront as we head to our first stop. We learn that a house that looks like a castle is called the Russian Castle because a Russian couple built it themselves after the war years ago. Also learn that she liked to dip in the Sea and so there is a spot that refers to her. We also learn that it is now a botanical garden with great live concerts. We missed the concerts we realized but plot out a time to visit the gardens.
Top left - our boat at dock Bottom left- an expensive waterside home Right - diving spot, where supposedly has a ship wreck, but Jeff never found it
2 helping hands. Nirvana the dog on the left and Jeff on the right
dinner one night. No that is not paella -a similar dish though with noodles instead of rice
Jardins de Cap Roig
This is the botanical garden that is on the Russian castle grounds. We enjoyed the gardens and its views. It was an interesting mix of plants. There was a lane just of cactus, another of palms and yet another of geraniums.
pictures of the castle itself
Clos D-Agon and Tela Marinera
For our last evening in Costa Brava and basically our last night of the trip, we went out on a sea and wine tasting excursion. We almost had to cancel because the sommelier that night only spoke Spanish, but the ship captain is married to an American, so he was our interpreter. The ship was an old Spanish sailing ship that the captain had gotten from Algiera after the government collapsed there.
Since the tour was partially hosted by a marina, we started by touring the local fish market. We recognized some of the fish and a lot of others were new to us. We learned why some calamari was much more expensive than others - has to do with how they were caught as in singly or a group at a time. Then it was time to walk to our ship for the evening. We were a group of about 10 or so and I know we were the only Americans and maybe the only non-Spanish in the group.
Shortly after the first wine was poured (a white) our captain came and got me. He said in Catalonia everyone had to work for their dinner, so I took over the wheel of the ship. When he realized I had not brought my wine with me, he grabbed Jeff and the 2 of us were in the cockpit of the boat with him. I think it was his way of being able to talk with us in English. We missed out on some of the wine information, (not the wine itself) but we learned about the boat and the waters instead. After a while, we got to a little bay of a neighboring town, and we anchored for a while so he could cook us the promised shrimp.
These were big shrimp! And they are not prepared the American way. In the small galley (kitchen) of the boat, he heated up a gridle and covered it in salt and then put the shrimp in shell on it and started cooking them. You could hear the salt and shrimp sizzling on the griddle. After a while he flipped the shrimp and then took them off the gridle and put them in a serving dish. He let them sit for about 5 minutes or so and then they were ready to eat. We had to promise to eat them the Catalonian way which we were agreeable to. Partially we wanted to see the best way to shell these things because we had been struggling with that the last couple of days! So, what was the best way to eat them?
First pull the head off,
second suck said head,
third throw the head off the boat into the water and watch the fish go after it,
fourth pull the tail off and then the rest of the shell, throw shell into the water for the fish and
finally eat the body of the shrimp.
If you look in the picture, you will notice the shell is red. Our captain said when they are picked it is white, but within 5 minutes it turns to red. Jeff and I wandered if these shrimps are related to the royal reds in the Gulf - both red and both sweet and best served without a coating or cooked simply.
As we finished up our shrimp, we had a couple more wines. One was made from 2 grapes one from a Spanish vineyard and one from a French. Much to Jeff's glee we finished with a tinto - a red wine. Then the sun was setting so it was time to head back to the marina and end our sea and wine tasting.
Carol earning her dinner by manning the helm
top half has the captain on the left and our wine leader on the far right. Bottom is shrimp on the grill
After we finished our sailing duties and our in the bay.
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