Fri, May 20 To the Costa Brava

Fri, May 20 Note: Hilary and Bob convinced me that my problems with changing fonts and exaggerated spacing in the blog is due to the fact that I’m accessing Blogger through AOL. Now I’m trying it through Internet Explorer 9...let me know if it improves!

We arose to a perfectly clear day and could see the mountain we had driven up yesterday in dense fog sharply against the sky! Oh, well!

We had another delicious breakfast with some local specialties like small pastries wrapped around spicy fruit and fried blood sausage - very good.

We packed and left around ten and drove to the coast to get onto the AP7, the speedy toll road, and passed by the exits for Pratdip, Tarragona and finally the huge sprawl of Barcelona. About 40 km north of Barcelona, we headed towards the coast and drove a ways along the Costa Daurada, a stretch that is very similar to Malibu: prosperous stores, lovely beaches, clogging traffic. We pulled into a gas station about two and stocked up on cookies and ice cream and headed inland for a less frustrating route.



About every quarter mile, on this busy highway, we saw a young lady in a folding chair with an umbrella, and not much else! The mystery is how one can stop and pull off for a chat with one of them on this speedy stretch without causing a major accident! Oh, well! Things we’ll never understand.

As we approached the Costa Brava, we came upon a new freeway interchange in progress which threw our carefully planned directions out of kilter, but Bob, with the help of his trusty GPS, maneuvered us through back streets of Palafrugell towards a rocky outcropping and down a steep incline through stone pines, until we could see turquoise water and large rocks! We entered an area much like Carmel and Big Sur combined; very snazzy houses and hotels overlooking a point on which was our next Parador: the Aiguablava (white water in Catalan)!

We pulled in past guarding cameras and walked into the hotel which, externally, is not very attractive architecturally, resembling, I think, a large cruise ship, but inside is all blue and white and very handsome with amazing views. We got standard rooms, but still we both have large verandas overlooking the ocean and a rocky cove full of screaming gulls. 

We settled in and then walked down the landward side of the point to a lovely cove beach with several restaurants and lots of swimmers, some top-less!. The air measured 75 and the water 69, so Hil and I may have to go swimming! We returned to the hotel and sat on the terrace and got our ‘welcome” drinks and who should come padding along but Maddie Cat’s identical twin! Bob was very happy and so was Maddie Dos as she got a good head scratch!
                                                                                  
We had dinner at the hotel of various kinds of fish cooked in different ways: fish raviolis, fish wrapped in a cabbage leaf, fish stew, all quite good.

Went to bed for yet another busy day.