Blogs from Girona, Catalonia, Spain, Europe

One reason I wanted to stay in the Bay of Roses again was to visit Girona as have always missed it out before. Too far to travel there on our scooter from the coast but this time we have our dinky little Fiat Cinquecento. Only an hours drive south and a little inland so we took the quiet roads route and avoided the motorways. Bob had identified a big free parking area just across the river from the main tourist area so we went straight there and sure enough there it was. How kind. Girona is famous for its coloured houses which line the banks of the river and they are indeed fine and the camera thought so too. There are several foot bridges across the river so easy to get to the other side to ... read more

We have arrived in Spain. After an overnight stay in Auch in a hotel high up the hill without elevators. Had to carry, lucky enough only the overnight bags,up three flights of stairs. to reach the room. Very happy it was air-conditioned for even at 5 p.m. the temperature was 35 degrees. We had a rest for a while before we went to look for a meal. The hotel had no facilities. There was a Carrefour shopping centre with a banquet restaurant That was good enough. Had a good meal there and was close to the Hotel. Had an early night for a hard day coming up. Crossing the Pyreneans promised to be a lot of small roads. It was close to 400 kilometers that could take the best part of the day. I was not ... read more

We’d struck a dry week, on several levels. Not only has P2 been off his appetite for beer and panaderías, with a bad dose of the man-cold, but the weather had that consistently good clean quality. Temperatures are now sitting higher overall, pollen counts are definitely higher (there’s lots of yellow - green residues about town adding to sinus sufferers woes), and spring activity is popping up everywhere, with lots of little vege planter boxes in the old town apartments looking tended to. Sunday was the best choice for what I’d been meaning to do for so long. No trucks on the N road, and the Costa Brava rally drivers had shipped out, with tyres marks in their wake to the west of town. Leaving P2 and his ill state, I took off up the Vall ... read more

It’s said time passes faster with age? And I’d add, experiences. Approaching 4 weeks here, the noticeable change in temporary population reinforces that the Spanish off season is definitely the preferred time. We imagine Barcelona would be intense all year round. Girona has a lot of architecture and tourist attraction to boast, so, on a fairly quiet Monday morning, we headed to the nearby Arab baths. We made an about-turn immediately after a big school group entered, being only four rooms big. Later in the day around 6pm, we passed and enquired, to find a quiet haven, without anyone else. In we went. It may have been grey / grim / artistically ‘moody’, but you’d easily conjure up visions of bathers, moving through the changing rooms, frigidarium, tepidarium / flotarium, and calidarium all generated from a ... read more

The circumstances were different this time. But primarily, upheaval leads us here. Spain captivated us on the Camino in late 2017. Knowing we’d some day return, with a vision of being somewhere a little longer than ‘passing through’, a quest to seek out that unique place (that wasn’t brimming with what we didn’t want) began. Ever our eyes on our favourite accommodation websites, and ears to Radio Tres (plus or minus checking nightly the studio video cam at the radio station), the immersion in Spanish language kept us super keen. In a blink, late in 2018, we’d locked the dates in and started our online conversations with Spain. Departure days are always filled with a little worry. In fact, departure month could be put into the stressful category, that culminated in an 11th hour car repair ... read more