Flavours of Catalonia: Girona and a walk to the Costa Brava

The day was consumed by the travel. We checked out of Locaboat on time at 0900 hrs, the taxi was a bit late, the train to Lyon was 'retard indetermine' initially, and this eventually turned into 40 minutes retard. We parted ways with Choco and Vikki at Gare Part Dieu in Lyon. They headed off on a tram to the Aeroporto and Portugal, and we waited for Renfe-SNCF train 9740 to take us to Girona. We got away on time at about 14 23 hrs (the trains can be like that).

We’d splashed here, first class travel, which was quite nice, comfortable leather seats, power supply, no wifi, a good buffet car. It seems only Italian trains have wifi. The weather outside looked pretty feral in the main, very windy and quite wet as we headed south and then west towards Spain.

The train took us through or close to Orange, Avignon, Baux, Nimes, Montpellier and down to the coast and through Beziers, Perpignan and under the Alps to Figueres then Girona. Interesting trip, jogging memories from 2008 and our trip with Ross and Michelle. It was about 7 30 by the time we got to our hotel just a short walk from Girona station. The station looks very new, pretty vast with big open areas and lots of escalators to bring us up from the bowels of the earth. We passed the 'inwards' facilities and noted the scanning equipment for incoming passengers luggage. A slight twinge of apprehension occasioned by our 2014 trip on Eurostar and Mrs Hitler’s “Is this your bag?” “Wait over there please” This time there is no Leatherman, no pocket knife in my luggage, and the paring knife (which was in Ann’s luggage and was not picked up by the Eurostar check) is now ceramic. So we’ll see how we go when we come through here to go to Toledo in a week’s time.

First night out in Catalunya and we went to eat local fare, reasonably late, just like the locals. So off to Casa Marieta. Ann had chicken croquettes to start and then the turbot with prawns and cockles. I had the battered squid followed by the roast shoulder of lamb. I definitely won the first round, but think Ann carried the day with the turbot. Washed down with a local wine, very presentable and very cheap. Mine host asked from whence we came, Nueva Zelanda, and she announced that that was where she was trying to get to for a holiday. She will keep working hard so she can do it.

We came to Girona really just to do the washing after a week on the canal boat. So next morning off we went to the lavandaria. I left Ann there and headed back to the Estacion Autobus to sort out tickets to Madremanya, then back to the hotel to do the blog. Ann arrived back safely at about 10 30, but some of the washing wasn’t quite dry. Her excuse.  An Algerian man, probably Muslim, was doing his washing at the same time as she was, problem was when he finished his, he took off the clothes he was wearing and put on the washed clothes. Ann declared general average and scarpered.

All had gone very well and we had about six hours before the bus left. So off into the old town we walked. The place was tourist central, Girona has an annual Temps de Flora festival which coincided with our visit and it was packed with hordes of tour groups, each waving their red umbrellas, or flowers on sticks to try to marshal the troops and desperately trying to see every floral display (over 100) in a day. The displays were certainly impressive, but the  numbers crowding in to see them even more so. 

First into the Basilica of St Luke (which I mistook for the Cathedral and bought the book to learn about all the fantastic things we saw there). After we left here we passed THE cathedral, but there were huge queues so didn’t go in, and so I have the book for the Cathedral we didn't see. The Basilica was actually quite spectacular and I’ll research that a bit more at some stage.

 

The old town was very interesting, Roman history, medieval history, Jewish history (Girona had the second largest Jewish population in Catalonia and the consequent history of oppression with a ghetto - El Call - with very narrow streets),  and more recent history when those Bourbon bastards from just over the border moved in a couple of hundred years ago. 

The old city was besieged so many times it has the nickname of "immortal" and "city of a thousand sieges" and has huge high walls for defence. Fascinating place, and we’d certainly have it on the revisit list, but at a time when we didn’t have to wade through crowds, or do the laundry.

There were long queues at Casa Marieta for lunch, (I wanted another shot at the squid), so we went next door to Café Kroenig. My deep fried artichoke and anchovies were terrific and Ann did enjoy the mini hamburgers and patatas bravas. Too much food for lunch, but we all make mistakes.

Later that afternoon the bus transfer worked well, just 34 km and 2.8 Euros each and we arrived at Madremanya, for the start of our week's walk.

We were dropped at an intersection in the middle of the country, with the village up on the hill to our left. Our accommodation was excellent, but when we came down to dinner the rain was pouring down outside. Not auspicious for walkers starting tomorrow!

Dinner. Just fantastic. Pictures can tell the story. Another degustation. Neither of us expected it or could in fact, do it justice,  big lunches wreck you! The food was superb.

Leisurely start next day, no rain but we had to expect it to be wet underfoot. We had a late start, breakfast served at 9 00 am. Another mountain of food, but we were pretty restrained. The breakfast, served at the table, produced fresh OJ, croissants, toast, three jams, four varieties of cheese, a platter of six meats, yoghurt, orange, plum, apricot, kiwifruit, tomato, garlic, coffee and fresh boiled eggs from the chooks outside. 

We set off on the Inntravel self-guided walk, our third in the series. Conditions underfoot were not too bad, walking notes superb and views all very good. We saw lots of paddocks of wheat, barley, and other crops, and plenty of Ann’s favourite poppies by the roadside. Snow on the Alps in the distance.

We walked through lovely little hamlets, woods with signs of deer, pigs, badgers and lots of wild flowers and herbs.

The walk was 15 km all up, passing through several villages and hamlets.

One of the highlights was the village of Pubol where Salvador Dali bought an old castle/chateau and restored it for his wife Gala to live in, as a "retreat" from his hectic lifestyle. Fantastic place; had a lot of his stuff, cars, paintings, sculptures, and was where he lived for his final years. The chess set is one he designed for a friend.

This place reminded us very much of Andrew. He was a Dali fan, and shared a lot of the avant garde aspects of the man who painted, sculpted, designed, dreamed, and also had some of the slightly aberrant views of the body and bodily functions. I struggled for the right word for that last aspect but if you knew Andrew you’ll know what I mean.

We got home around 3.30 in time to have a wind down and relax before dinner, and start to write the blog. We are very much enjoying the amble in the Catalonian countryside, with beautiful spring flowers - thyme, rosemary, wild roses, and so many more.

For our second day's walking, we were picked up by the cab transferring our luggage to Es Portal, our "Hotel Gastronomic" just outside Pals, and we were dropped off at a village, Vulpellac, to the start  the walk. The taxi carried on to drop our bags at Es Portal. InnTravel do a very good job of the documentation for these walks, and you go through some interesting little by-ways. 

We walked lanes and tracks, through woods and farmland. Same sorts of crops as yesterday, but country a bit flatter. We went past some ancient quarries at Clots de Sant Julia, which were used in Roman times to build the Cami d’Empuries, part of Via Augusta, which serviced this part of the empire, and also to provide the stone for building nearby towns.

It’s all pretty agricultural, plenty of piggeries which we were aware of as we walked. But if you want to be able to order that suckling pig (one of the local delicacies) then you need to have the piggeries to supply it.

Today’s walk was just 13.5 km and we stopped in the ancient medieval fortified village of Peratallada (hewn stone) for lunch, consisting of beer, patatas bravas and squid rings for about 17 Euros, which is pretty cheap fare. The village is one of the best preserved of its time, saved mainly by the fact that the town went broke in the 16^th century and became a bit of a backwater subsequently, and nobody developed it!.

We were treated to great views on the mountains of St Caterina off to the east.

We visited a church built in the 11^th century with stone coffins scattered around the church precinct. These had been archeologically examined about 30 years ago, no bones remaining but some of the coffins still in very good condition. Being a pall bearer would have required a massive amount of strength!

We got to Es Portal around three and were shown to our room. Great spot, complete with an ice bucket and a complimentary bottle of Cava, and even the minibar is free here, that’s a first.

Our walk is named Flavours of Catalonia, and our last stay at Madremanya gets a mention in the Michelin guide, this one also. Keep in mind we are walking lots, but I suspect not enough to offset the high calorie intake for this bit of the trip.

Our chef, Joan Carles Sanchez, who cooked at the Madrid Ritz  and has a keen focus on Empordian cuisine, is away tonight at a cooking exposition in Germany. So they are shipping us off to another place for tonight's meal, and he’ll be back for tomorrow night. In both cases we get to experience aspects of the local fare.

Catalunya seems to have restaurants galore, and the off-course substitute was only a stone’s throw away across a wheat field. Food was again great, spicy snails for both of us to start, and 10 hour cooked lamb for Ann and beef with foie and fromage for me. In an unusual move we had dessert, the local crème brulee (Creme Catalan) for Ann and a mango with fromage frais for me. And yes we plan to have crackers and water for lunch tomorrow. The wine was a local Grenache, Merlot and Syrah blend, very heavy and very fruity.

Our breakfast selection spread today just had to be seen to be believed, we went pretty light on it, but it still reinforced the lunch choice of crackers and water for lunch today.

Today’s walk took us through several mediaeval towns, first Pals, then Palau-Sator.

 These have very old churches and defensive walls which over time have become the rear wall of people’s dwellings. Palau has three concentric rings, one the old moat and the other two defensive walls. Sator means tower, and they built these so they only worked one way, you can be in them and shoot arrows out, but they are open back into the town. If the baddies get hold of them, there is no shelter to help them further attack the town. The diagram showed it well.

The towns have a lot of history. In Pals for example they have uncovered boat-like Visigoth graves, pre second century AD,  dug into the walls of houses.

Outside the towns today was more wheat, barley, phalaris, lucerne, broad beans and we were also supposed to see rice.

Pals is renowned for its rice, we didn’t see any, but some of the rice areas seemed to be planted in capsicums and other crops and in places fields just sat empty. Perhaps it's one they plant late in the spring. We did see a fine crop of snails on the side of the road, but a bit little for dinner.

We got home about five minutes before a thunder and lightning storm accompanied by a huge downpour arrived. We fortunately were able to watch from the comfort of our room.

Jean Carlos is back so we have another degustation tonight focussed on Emporda food. The meal was just fantastic (again) as I’m sure the pictures can convey. These were Ann's dishes: scallops with foie, fresh cod, and apple with fig icecream on a crisp pastry base.

Tomorrow we walk out to the coast for a couple of nights to stay at Fornells at the Hotel Aigua Blava, where the chef is Lluis Ferres, and we’ll get to see what he can produce at our degustation dinner on Sunday night.

The walk there took us across hills and through pine forest, surprisingly through some very sandy areas. Not a hard walk, and little sign of the local fauna, except a few pig or deer tracks and a few rabbits. Some of the wildlife consists of slathering, barking dogs which many of the locals keep, thankfully mostly behind fences, except in one notable case soon after we left Vulpellac on Wednesday. We did discuss the old adage 'let sleeping dogs lie', when a mastiff, hearing Ann say  "There's dogs over there", woke from a sound sleep and cleared the fence in a single bound, to her consternation. More bark than bite fortunately.

At Begur, another ancient town, we did the town walk and saw many old homes built by locals who left around 1820-1840, went to the West Indies and Cuba, returning around 20 years later having made their fortunes as traders, bakers, importers and exporters and millers. They built their houses in the style they’d seen in places like Cuba and were called Los Indianos. 

The town still has remnants of a medieval castle and several towers built to afford protection against pirates who were a bit of a scourge in those times. The towers had no doors. Apparently the villagers would use a ladder to access the second floor, then pull it up after them and throw stones down on the invaders.

A further 3 km downhill doddle from there got us to the Hotel Aigua Blava, which sprawls down the hillside. It is a big place.

The room has a fantastic view and the facilities are good. Inntravel have done a really good job on the logistics for this, as they have in fact for the other two walks we’ve done in the Duoro, and on the Yorkshire Downs. Our bags had been delivered by taxi from Es Portals, the last stop, but we still get to do the unpack and pack up again in a couple of days’ time. We look over the little harbour and have fantastic views around the bays to the beach.

 

Dinner was not till 8 00 pm so we had plenty of time for a walk around the coastal path to the sandy beach of Aiguablava, which had two restaurants packed with diners, and a few people on the beach. Water still a bit cold for swimming. Then home for a regroup and a drink on the balcony. Spain does do GnTs well.

A la carte menu for the first night and the food was good fare. Again we stuck with the Emporda wine list. The wine was a white selection and a mix of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, can’t say it’s something likely to catch on in NZ. The highlight for me was the cheeseboard, which I expected to be two or three cheeses, not seven.

Our walk today stared from Begur, about 3 km away up the hill, so we decided to do that bit by taxi for the outwards half, otherwise by the time we got home at the end of the day we’d have walked that stretch three times. Good views initially of beaches to the north and also the area we had walked in, across the hills from Pals.

 Lots of up and downhill today, and initially downhill  to Aiguafreda, a rocky inlet with no beach as such, but a little jetty, a couple of bars (not open yet, too early in the season) and a dive shop/business. We watched four divers giant stride off the jetty into the crystal clear water. They were older and much heavier than me, and the rest of the family were standing on the jetty watching them. They didn’t go very far, and I suppose it was just lookey-look, but intriguing to see. Certainly they didn’t fit the NZ average diver profile at all. The sheltered bays all have masses of mooring buoys for boats in lines, it must be spectacular to see in summer.

Our walk had an option to go around to the next beach Sa Tuna, which we did, on a beautiful coastal pathway with fantastic views.

Sa Tuna is a small beach and was pretty crowded, so we sat and had lunch and watched the crowd.

I should mention that our lunch was purchased yesterday as we arrived in Begur. Pears, Oranges, potato chips accompanied by water, total cost 4 Euro (for the two days). So the trip is not all calories and expensive dinners. A little weird though when our meal cost varies from 2 Euros to 530 Euros for the two of us!

We decided, adventurously, not to follow our prescribed walk home, thinking that if we went via Mirador de Sa Tuna, and Mirador de St Josep, we’d get to see a lot more of the coast.

And we did, but it was a tough walk on a skinny, initially rising steeply track to the Mirador St Josep which then declined steeply into another bay which had an even steeper climb out of. And we were doing all this without the aid of Inntravel’s walk notes. By the time of the second steep ascent from sea level to 270m Ann was a bit out of breath and much less happy, but we did get back to Begur and sat to have the beer we’d promised ourselves.

We are looking forward to the final coastal walk tomorrow, which one of the hotel staff described as a bit of a roller coaster while delightedly pointing out the hills we need to walk across. Today prepared us well.

So after packing yet again, and leaving the bags for the cab we set off for Llafranc, We’d done the short walk to Aiguablava beach when we arrived on Saturday; this time there was a group of divers waiting to be picked up at the block. This lot looked more authentic, big tanks, including several rebreathers, all in dry suits, much more professional.

The coast here has plenty of marine reserve areas, not sure any are big enough to preserve the species, but like Goat Island they do create a bit of a mecca for divers and snorkelers.

After the beach it obviously had to be uphill and it was, but on tarmac and not too bad today. We turned off into a scrubby pine and cork tree wood. (Cork has been quite a big industry in this area and throughout our walk we’ve seen trees that have been harvested. But the trees here were too skinny to be worth harvesting.) 

The path wended its way down to another small beachside village, Tamariu, which provided the best coffee we've had yet in Spain.

A very pretty place with lots of restaurants on the beach and another bunch of divers who were giant-striding off the block pier and into the crystal clear water. They weren’t going far, the dive shop has a “home reef” buoyed off in the bay, so you need go only about 50m to see the wildlife!

We left via the beach and along the rocky shore, with great views back to Tamariu, and some spectacular shoreline scenery. It was a great day’s walking, sometimes along very narrow track, zig zagging down a cliff looking down at steep guts, other times ambling through coastal pine woods. We dropped down to the pebbly beach at Carla Pedrosa on a very steep track, it’s accessible only by this track or by sea.

The climb out wasn’t as difficult as Ann expected, and then a few more km across the clifftops brought us to a lookout tower, now a hotel and the lighthouse of San Sebastia  next door. It’s the most powerful beacon on the Spanish Mediterranean Coast, so you wouldn’t want it shining in your bedroom window.

Down below, another sandy bay and the seaside town Llafranc, and our last stop on the walk. Hotel Llevant, right on the beachfront.

After one small beer for Ann and a large one for me, it was a walk on the beach and toes into the very cold, very jellyfishy, sea. Perused the marina, and chatted to one of the locals doing some work on his boat.

He fishes only in the wintertime for “calamars”. He was pretty impressed by the Bay of Islands snapper I showed him. They don’t catch them like that here.

Our degustation dinner was a bit of a fizzer, food was OK, but Ann decided part way through that one of the smoked mussels that had come with our lunchtime beer and snack, must have seen better days. So she retired and I trudged through the rest of the meal. Next day was an electrolyte day for her, I’d had one of those on our first day in Beaune, so could empathise with that.

But all in all this was a great walk. Inntravel did us proud with the variety of sights, great accommodation and reliable notes. We'd certainly recommend it.