Far from the madding crowd...for a few hours!

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We visited Girona on the way from Barcelona to Figueres, where we are tonight. It was late in the afternoon when we arrived and the GPS took us on our first drive through Medieval streets since the nightmares of our Italian trip. This time, all went well, and we even found a free public parking lot! At one point, we were the only car on the streets (including no parked cars and were sure we'd ended up in pedestrian zone...

Girona is really beautiful, with a very well-preserved Roman wall, surrounded by lush gardens, and tiny Medieval passageways...We wandered around and ended up on top of the wall, and later in the old Jewish area, where we found a modern furniture store built into the wall by what might the remains of a synagogue...! We ate Indian food, as we did in Barcelona, for dinner and got to Figueres just before dark.

Figueres has one claim to fame, and it's a big one: Salvatore Dali was born here, and lived here during part of his fame, creating an amazing home/performance art set...

Today we spent a few hours in the house/theater, now museum (it is the second most popular in Spain), and then drove to a mountain top monastery, and then on to the town where Dali summered (and stole his muse Gala away from her husband), finishing with a quick trip (it was pouring by then) to the once largest fort in Europe, and back to Figueres to the local art museum...

The road to the Monastery St Pere de Rodes was breathtaking, as were the roads to the beach towns we visited.

We are packed for our drive back to Madrid and the airport tomorrow...about 8 hours, we hope...we fly out Thursday morning...

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Photos

Girona Riverfront
What a beautiful setting..a total surprise!

Cow crossing
high in the mountains...and they had bells on...pretty sound!

Monastery Sant Pere de Rodes
A large group of hikers passing through...it started pouring about 30 minutes later..

Terracing
Hsrd to see, but the entire mountainside (of each mountain!) was terraced using the flat pieces of shale from the outcroppings on the mountains...don't know why...maybe a thousand years ago they grew grapes here?

Comments

[Carol and Martin McClain]

Barcelona
We actually enjoyed the vitality and vibrancy(i.e. the crowds) of Barcelona. I'm a New Yorker originally, and Detroit has one of the deadest downtowns of any major U.S. City. We enjoyed all of your photos...good memories! We never made it to the Dali Museum; glad you made the opportunity to go. Safe travels home! Best, Carol and Martin

[Geo]

Girona
Now, that place I would really like to visit. G