Happy end in Spain

Dora is sorted. Her new (well relatively new) fifth gear allows us to drive over 60 kilometres an hour. Such a luxury, we are going to start calling her ‘Speedy-Gon-Dora’. Also, her battery circuit has not failed once. We feel relief but nonetheless still sad leaving Spain.

So we drive up the ‘Costa Brava’, the Mediterranean coastline along Girona. The last few villages we stop before crossing the border: Empuriabrava and Cadaques. Both have been recommended by my cousin Cristina. The first one is known in Spain as the ‘Venice of the Mediterranean sea’. The second one is where the Spanish painter Salvador Dali was born.

I am intrigued about what both villages has got to offer, especially the first one. Gary took me to Venice ten years ago and I fell in love with it. I had never seen such beautiful town. To me, if a village calls itself the Venice of whatever, it has a lot to live up to.

We arrive at Empuriabrava in the morning. Bright and sunny although quite blustery. Soon, we see signs directing towards the tourist information centre. We pop in. “The best thing to get the gist of this town is hiring a boat and sailing around the canals. Thereafter, you can visit the historic centre, Castello d’Empuries, which is 5 kilometres away” the tourist information officer advises.

Before we go back to the boat hiring place, we pop to the beach. It is still quite blustery. Perhaps it is not time yet to be in t-shirt weather. We go back to Dora to get our fleeces.

We look around. So far, Empuriabrava is not different from any other resort town. Long beaches, front line hotels, night cafes and restaurants.

However, the beaches look endless, and very quiet at this time of the year.

Ten minutes later, we are in the boat hiring place. Not sure where the entrance is, no staff seem to be around. Only builders refurbishing the place before the summer crowds arrive.

Finally we find a shop. A woman greets us enthusiastically, “the first customers in about a month”, she must have thought. Plenty of boats available and we can choose between petrol and electric boats. We go for the later, more eco-friendly (that is us ) and calmer. Although I don’t think the ones run by petrol would be amazingly faster.

The town is pretty straight forward to navigate. It is built  by a series of canals, parallel to each other. Residents can only access their property by boat.

To our surprise, hiring the boat costs €35 for an hour . Anyway, it looks like this is the best way to see the town and probably why it is so expensive.

I let Gary take control of the boat, too much excitement for me.

We leave the dock.

The route around the town should take only 40 minutes and it is clearly marked, no chance of getting lost. The women has told us we can sail through the back streets if we wanted to, as it is low season, and for the same price! Such a privilege. We may take advantage of this opportunity.

The boat doesn’t go faster than 10 kms per hour. This could be a long 40 minutes. I sit back and relax.

Soon we can start to see the residents’ boats parked and covered until the summer arrives.

Most of the houses seem to follow the same style, all painted in white, with rounded corners. Very impractical.

Tacky sculptures at the entrance seem also a common feature.

Someone have decided to be radical and chosen a different style…or not. It looks more like a restaurant.

This is our turning point, the lake. It looks like a big square. Here the houses turn into apartments. Not much going on now.

This is probably the most impressive part of the town to live in. Imagine waking up every morning to this view.

I imagine this is sea water, as it is so close to the sea. However, it doesn’t look tidal, as there are marks of water levels on the walls. I wonder what systems they have in place to keep the same water level.

I look through the water. It doesn’t look particularly clean. Plastic bags and all sort of rubbish appear to have been gathered at the bottom during winter. Surprisingly, the water doesn’t smell, unlike Venice’s when it gets dirty.

Suddenly, seagulls come to say hello. We chase them but they are faster than us (of course). These are the bravest which don’t fly away as we get closer.

We are gradually getting slower. Perhaps some plastic bags have been caught up in the propeller. If that is the case, the tour could take longer than expected. We hope we don’t get charged for the overrun.

After 50 minutes, we get back to the dock. It has been a pleasant journey. Empuriabrava, done!

I must admit I have not seen anything that resembles Venice. No history; no cute, small, houses; no cafes or bars; no restaurants; no shops; no residents… This is just a holiday resort where they have built a few highly-controlled canals. With this excuse, they can put up the property prices and extor the tourists. I have not been harsh. Anyone who has been so fortunate to visit Venice would agree with me.

We now go to the old town town, Castello d’Empuries, at 4 kilometres drive away.

The usual old town with narrow streets and century old  houses.

We cannot get in the cathedral, god is not in at the moment, maybe he has gone out for lunch.

The cathedral is located in a cute square. No one around. Only a couple of British tourists reading a bit of history of the cathedral.

Nice vegetable patch gives us a few ideas for our plans for the future (we will talk about this in another post).

Final tour, though the town hall square. All very quiet and lonely. It feels like the village dies from 13.00 to 16.00.

Quick lunch and move on to Cadaques. Our time in Spain is coming to a close.

 

Lovely half an hour drive to the village, through a windy, narrow road along the hills of Costa Brava. The views of the Mediterranean sea are stunning, the day warm and bright. There is a hint of spring in the air.

Maybe we will have a nice frappe in a cafe overlooking the coast when we get to Cadaques.

We arrive at the edge of the village. The first sign we come across: no motorhomes allowed. We will just have to leave Dora in the car park. This is the first car park for a while which charges, maybe this is an expensive village!

We start walking towards the coast. A few cafes along the promenade. We look at them with envy, no cold drink for us. We continue up the hill.

Elegant houses at the heart of the village.

The scenery of the bay is fantastic. I wonder how much it would be to rent one of these houses for a week.

The path takes us to the top of the hill. We can see a few houses scattered over them. This is what gives you hints that this is likely to be a very wealthy place. People build their holiday houses worth millions of euros hidden in bushes, far apart from each other, keeping their anonymity.

We have not yet seen the centre of the village and we don’t know how to get there. Signs pointing out in opposing directions. Someone must have been really bored at one point and decided to have fun by twisting the signs to confuse people. So we decide to walk back on the road parallel to the coast. Very boring walk but will take us there…eventually.

Finally, we get to the centre of the village. Very peaceful.

I have the impression that the village may not get very crazy in summer. There are only a few restaurants, shops and hotels. The houses in the village seem to be occupied all year around. A few art galleries but not many, which suggests that the fact that Salvador Dali was born here has not been used as an excuse to exploit the village.

Very nice, very cute little corners.

Very satisfied with our last Spanish tour. Thanks to my cousin Cristina for suggesting this place.

We look at the watch, we have been walking for three hours.

We are only twenty minutes from the French border so let’s move on. But before, we drive outside the village and stop in a layback for an hour. We still have some credit in our Spanish data cards that we have to use before leaving, otherwise it will we get lost. Whilst we use up the data, we take a couple of beers out. Nothing to envy to any seaside cafe .

 

It is 18.00, we need to move on. The aire we have chosen to spend the night is 130 kilometres drive. All facilities free. We desperately need water. Our AutoRoute map suggests the journey should take only an hour an a half. We should be able to get there just before dark.

However, the road is very windy and steep in places. Dora doesn’t perform well on these surfaces. It could take us good two and a half hours. We change plans, we will stay in an aire much closer, in Port-Vendres. This one is not free but in situations like this is worthwhile paying. Driving in the dark is both dangerous and tiring.

We get to the aire in the dark. It is packed with motorhomes. There seems no to be any controls or payment machines. Perhaps, the aire is now free. We fill up Dora’s tank, we end the day having a nice shower and a bit of dinner accompanied with a glass of Portia.

SM