Sat, May 21 We got together with Hil at eight for an even larger buffet than at the Tortosa Parador- meats, pastries, fruits, cheeses, wine, eggs, etc. and ate quite a lot which was fortunate as we didn’t eat anything else until three, and then just cookies!
We set off at 9:30 AM in a northward direction, passing through several medieval town with lovely churches and one town with a huge castle on top of a high hill. We found out later that the castle is just a shell as the king who started building it in 1294 settled his feuds with neighboring counts and stopped working on it! The land is rolling wheat fields with stone walls and beautiful large stone farm houses. Right out of “A Year In Provance”.
We approached a large marshy area that has been protected by the Parc Natural dels Aguimolls and consists of acres of old rice fields, woods and open water with a wide trail, series of boardwalks and bird hides. We set off with hoards of others out for a Saturday outing, but were pleased to see quite a few kids checking off birds on a list and using binoculars. We passed an area with huge storks’ nests, all well-occupied. There are few white storks in N Spain and efforts are being made to re-introduce them.
We climbed up an old rice silo that had been made into an observation tower and got great view of marshland, a herd of horses, and on out to the beach. From bird hides built over the water we saw lots of Mallards, Eurasian Coot with their young, Great Crested Grebe, Great Cormorants, Marsh Harriers, and Reed Warblers and Zitting Cisticulas in the grasses. On a tiny island we could just glimpse three red and spotted Fallow Deer! Another new mammal We walked over two miles to where the trail ended on the beach and started walking back. There were beautiful flowers: white roses, yellow iris, among other. A really idyllic spot…and no active rice fields!
It took us four hours to walk five miles (good birding speed) and it was almost 3 pm when we returned to the car to inhale a few cookies which we had forgotten to take with us on the trail!
We continued up the coast a bit to Empúries, the site of Greek and Roman cities that wasn’t excavated until 1908. A large statue of Asklepios, the god of healing, is there in the small, but lovely museum. We wandered around the areas marked “market”, the salting factory, a metallurgy factory, all set among Stone Pines on the brilliant blue Mediterranean! We walked around the nearby Roman ruins of what once was a very fancy house with large mosaic floors of complicated geometric patterns. Lovely area!
. For dessert I couldn’t resist one translated as “the most entertaining colds”! The waitress told me it was a dessert for children, but I had to have it anyway! It turned out to be four tiny ice-cream cones of chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and bright blue ice-cream stuck in a large brownie and surrounded by candy, and not bad
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