Category: Catalonia

We had a very short agenda for today, lunch at our favorite restaurant in Roses. We have eaten at La Gallaga de Roses four times in our various visits here and each meal has been fantastic. We could think of no better way to end this visit to Spain than with a meal there.

Our reservation was not until 1 pm so we slept in and then relaxed around the campground enjoying our morning coffee. We headed into town and just kind of window shopped for about an hour before showing up for our meal.

The meal was fantastic, and the portions were huge. In addition to the main course we received two starters, a plate of anchovies, and a plate of calamari. The main course was the sea food platter above, and it was finished off with desert. We were the first ones to arrive, but within 30 minutes the place was full. Ton had dish envy as she looked at what the people around us ordered, the variety of seafood on offer is fantastic. La Gallaga did not let us down again.

We took our time on the way back as we wanted to walk off our lunch as we were stuffed. When we returned to François we both decided an afternoon siesta was in order. The rest of the day was spent goofing off before our big drive north tomorrow.

Our time in Spain is coming to a close so we reluctantly left Cadaques behind and headed over the hill to Roses. Today’s primary purpose was to prepare ourselves for the drive back to Amsterdam by filling the refrigerator with cheap Spanish food, filling François with cheap (relatively) Spanish fuel, and getting a couple of things at a hardware store.

We weren’t in a big hurry to get moving in the morning and lingered in Cadaques until near our checkout time. The drive over the hills was again slow but uneventful. We arrived in Roses around 11:30 and took care of our chores.

After topping François off we headed over to Mercadona to pick up some staples for the drive north. Ton loves the vegetables in Spain; everywhere else we shop (except France) she is lamenting that vegetables are not as fresh as Spain. I managed to track down a couple more bottles of a Spanish red wine that I think is the best value I have ever drank, I picked up a bottle last week for €1.35 on a lark, when I opened it with low expectations I found an easy drinking wine that put a lot of very expensive bottles of wine to shame.

Having knocked out our chores we checked into the campground and took a couple of hours to relax. Our plan was to head out to the waterfront promenade for an evening walk right before sunset.

The promenade in Roses is a couple of kilometers long. The view to sea is beautiful. The town is less charming especially after Cadaques. But what Roses has are some excellent restaurants and that is why it is memorable to us.

The first meal we ever had in Spain was in Roses and we still talk about it today. The best meal we have ever had in Spain is also in Roses. The real reason we came to Roses is that we have a reservation at the La Gallega de Roses tomorrow. It is going to be our farewell meal before leaving.

The Spanish have a marvelous tradition of an evening family walk. We always enjoy participating in the tradition. The waterfront promenade in Roses is always a good walk, particularly on a day with perfect weather. The sunset was beautiful.

Cadaques is not a large town and we had seen most of it yesterday. But it is a picturesque town and Ton was looking forward to spending the day walking the streets and waterfront with her camera.

Our first stop of the day was the church. It was supposed to occupy the highest point in the town, but like a lot of things it depends on how you define highest. Our campground was definitely higher than the church but maybe we weren’t considered part of the town.

After the church we decided to head into the commercial part of town to a family run bakery. We split a nice cream filled pastry and coffee. As we were sitting there the school let out for lunch and the owners two daughters came running in looking for food. They were very cute.

The next couple of hours were spent slowly walking the waterfront enjoying the views. Ton was in heaven as there were lots of great spots for photos, though the light was not quite right.

Most of the time the tourists we see in towns are retirees like us. Today was nice as the majority of tourists were younger families with kids. Today the families were mostly French as it also a school holiday there, and Cadaques is located quite close to the French border so we were not perplexed like we were in Tarragona with all of the German kids.

In our travels we have noticed that European kids are given a lot more room to roam by their parents than American kids. It is not unusual to see kids playing along the waterfront or walking through the town unescorted by parents. Ton and I like this independence and believe it is healthy.

We debated lunch but couldn’t come to agreement on a place to eat so we finally compromised by stopping at a beach front bar and having a glass of wine. We spent some of our time talking to the German couple at the next table. When we first asked where he was from he said I like to think I am European. He had an interesting life as he had grown up in Catalonia and worked for over 20 years in France. He is now wrapping up his career in Germany and is thinking he will split his time in retirement between Germany and Mauritius.

Before we knew it, it was 4pm and we definitely needed something to eat so we climbed the hill to François. Ton prepared a nice Spaghetti dinner and we watched a beautiful sunset from inside François.

We have learned that some of our most memorable days are the days when we do the least.

Cadaques has been on our list to visit for a long time. We like this part of Spain and have visited the neighboring city of Roses four times. We go out of our way to stop there whenever we come to Spain.

To get to Cadaques we had to transit Barcelona. Like everyone driving a RV transiting cities is never fun. Today went smoothly in our direction, though at one point there was a truck about the size of François on its side with fire trucks and ambulances in the lanes going the opposite direction. This was a reminder of how things can go bad.

The last 20 kilometers were on steep and winding mountain roads. It was a pretty drive though Ton enjoyed the view much more than I did as the road had my full attention.

Our campground is only about 400 yards from the waterfront, but it is also about 400 feet higher. The trail/road down was steep and mostly straight. The walk down was hard on the knees, and the walk up was hard on the lungs.

Since we are staying tomorrow today was more of a reconnaissance to see what the town had to offer. Tourism is king here and has been for decades. The waterfront was full of restaurants and cute shops. We took a look at a couple of places for tomorrow.

Last year we visited the Dali museum in nearby Figueres. Dali had a home here that he stayed at for much of the year. It has now been turned into a museum. We had thoughts of going to it, but there are no tickets available on Thursday and Saturday, and only one on Friday. Since there are two of us we had to pass on the Dali museum.

We covered about half of the U shape harbor walk today and really enjoyed ourselves. Tomorrow we will spend more time in the town and try to fully explore the waterfront and the narrow streets in the hills above town.

The weather was bad yesterday, but it was worst today. The region we are in is in the process of getting over 1″ of rain in 12 hours and the rain is coming with strong winds. But being intrepid and optimistic travelers we decided to head into town anyway. Our plan was to go to a restaurant for lunch and head into town when the rain let up.

When we arrived downtown the rain was sheeting down and the wind was blowing a gale. We hustled the 200 meters to the restaurant and still arrived dripping wet.

The restaurant Ton chose was called El Hogar del Jubilado which roughly translates as “The Pensioners Restaurant”. It is the type of place with plastic chairs, formica topped tables and very simple food made from fresh ingredients. The kind of food your grandmother would make if she was Spanish. You went to the counter, pointed at what you wanted from what was on display and they prepared it for you. We pointed at Anchovies, Squid, a piece of cod, and a potato dish. We were looking at some more stuff as it all looked good, the lady behind the counter saw us contemplating some more stuff when she held up her hand and indicated that we had already ordered a lot of food. When it came it was absolutely delicious and the portions were huge. This didn’t stop Ton from ordering one more dish of egg plant and fried peppers. Our neighbors were getting a kick out of the amount of food we ordered. We had plenty of time to eat as the weather was showing no signs of letting up. We shared the restaurant for about 2 hours with a bunch of Dutch pensioners, nibbling at our food and looking for signs the weather was going to break.

We finally threw in the towel and headed back to the campground. We may be intrepid travelers, but age has made us wiser- we will try again tomorrow.

Suddenly our decisions are being decided by time, on every trip there comes a point where the logistics of wrapping up the trip start to weigh on our plans. Two days ago we took a day off because we were tired and the normal rainy days that serve as rest days had not happened on this trip. Today our first serious storm of the trip is on us. On top of that we are in a town we really like. Earlier in the trip we would have just hunkered down for a rain day. But we are pretty far south of Amsterdam, so instead of resting we decided to take advantage of light traffic Sunday and head north about 4 hours to Peniscola.

The drive went smoothly and we only hit one really wet stretch for about 30 minutes. The rest of the way was light showers. Traffic was light and we by-passed Valencia so all in all a good drive. We arrived in Peniscola and set up in a slightly underwhelming campground for the day. The bad weather is supposed to continue tomorrow so we will have another decision to make.

Roses was the first city we visited in Spain and we have had two of our favorite meals in Europe there so we decided to spend the night in Roses before heading into France. We also wanted to visit the Dali Museum which is in the nearby town of Figueres.

François hit a major milestone today on our drive when his odometer hit 100,000 kilometers. We think he had about 18,000 kilometers on him when we bought him used in 2017.

Dali was born in Figueres and died there. In the 1960’s he oversaw the construction of a museum dedicated to himself in a burned out theater in Figueres. It is now an extremely popular place to visit and tickets must be purchased in advance.

Neither Ton or I knew much about Dali beyond he was a flamboyant practitioner of surrealism. Whenever his name came up I would always picture in my eye the paintings of the melting clocks that were one of his famous pieces.

As we were driving across Barcelona Ton read me a bit of his biography. The most controversial thing is that Dali was a supporter of the Fascist dictator Francisco Franco. This cost him his friendship with the other great Spanish artist of the 20th century- Picasso, and caused him to be estranged from his father for many years.

He spent several years in the US during WWII. He moved back to Spain after the war and spent the last years in Figueres. The theater in Figueres had burned down in the Spanish Civil War so in 1960 he began the process of remaking the theater as a museum of his works.

The theater was quite crowded, but the number of pieces on display and the diversity of the work was what surprised and delighted us. It was not a museum of paintings of melting clocks, but it contained works from his lifetime including periods when he worked in cubism and surrealism style as well as many three dimensional pieces that were fascinating.

The most fascinating piece to me was a portrait of Lincoln that was holographic. When you look at the painting up close you cannot tell that it is a painting of Lincoln, but when you look at it thru a camera lense, or from a distance you can see it quite clearly.

I cannot even fathom how you envision the concept and have the technical skill to pull it off. Ton and I were truly amazed by this piece of art.

We spent a couple of hours in the museum before heading to Roses to find a campground. In the spring we had a fantastic sea food meal that remains one of Tons favorite meals in Europe. So we decided to visit the restaurant again for dinner.

We headed to town for what for us was a very late dinner, but for the Spanish was an early dinner at 7pm. We replicated the meal but added some appetizers. A couple of hours later we walked out stuffed and glad we had about a mile to walk to try to burn off some of the food. This is the reason this post is a day late.

It is time to start heading north so today we jumped up the coast about 400 kilometers to a place near Tarragona. The day started with a visit to Lidl to stock up on some Spanish goodies and wine for the long driving days ahead. The wine is for post driving recovery.

After that we got on the AP-7 pointed François north and cruised for about 5 hours. The AP-7 used to be a toll road, but in Spain after the cost of the road is covered by tolls the road becomes a freeway. The AP-7 is now free and we appreciated saving what would have been a €20 or 25 toll in the past.

We had picked out a campground near Tarragona that we had stayed at twice in the spring and enjoyed. To my surprise when we arrived it had already closed for the season. After some quick research I told Ton there was another campground nearby and someone had reviewed it yesterday on Park4Night so it is open. After a 15 minute drive we arrived at the very upscale entryway to Tamarit Beach Resort. By accident we had found the “Best Large Campground in Europe” for 2025 as decreed by our European campground discount card ACSI. It is huge with three restaurants, a giant pool, tennis courts, and about a mile of beachfront.

But none of this impressed Ton as much as the big commercial washer and dryers in the bathroom building. So after getting settled in we spent the rest of the day washing clothes at the best large campground in Europe.

We were up early to see Kit and Stephen off on their trip home. We hope they enjoyed their taste of RV’ing in Europe. It was fun having traveling companions for part of the trip, and is a very different way to see places than just with the two of us.

Since we were up early we decided to get our laundry taken care of. The campground here had nice commercial washers and dryers so it was done with quickly. One thing Ton and I have noticed on this trip is in Spain most of the campgrounds have now invested in commercial washers and dryers which is a big improvement over our first trip thru Spain nearly 7 years ago. Washing clothes is not nearly the chore it was back then.

The rest of the day was spent giving François a thorough scrub down, and finding a place for all of the food we inherited from Kit and Stephen. It was mid-afternoon before we finished. The afternoon was spent lazing around a much quieter campground as all of the Spanish had returned to work. We had planned an evening walk on the beach, but about 5pm a big thunderstorm was forming inland and it hit in force about 6. By the time it ended Ton was comfortably under the covers so no romantic walk on the Mediterranean tonight.

Today was Stephen and Kits last day with their motorhome, so our primary goal was to get near Barcelona so they could clean up and pack for their trip home. We left Valencia early and headed up the coast to the campground we had stayed at early in the trip. After a 3 hour drive on a pretty quiet Autovia we arrived at a very full campground. We got two spots together and they began cleaning while Ton and I stayed out of the way.

After they finished packing we went out for a farewell to Spain lunch. We enjoyed another great seafood meal and a final pitcher of Sangria. We later sat around and talked until the sun went down.

We made a short jump down the coast to Tarragona. We wanted to test convoy driving and so I wanted to keep it short today, but we had the complication of driving across the second biggest city in Spain with a population of about 3 million. Much to our relief the drive went pretty well and we arrived at our campground in Tarragona around noon.

After we had lunches at the campground it was time to head into Tarragona. Our quick research showed that it is known as one of the largest sea ports in Europe with a nice cathedral and some Roman ruins. We were not sure what to expect when we arrived as it is not known as a tourist destination.

We stepped off the bus right in front of the Roman Amphitheater. While not perfectly preserved like some we have visited it was well presented and occupied the most spectacular site of any we have seen. You can look down on it from many directions and get a good view of how things worked. You can walk thru it, but we decided against paying the admission fee. It was built in the 2d century but abandoned during Moorish rule. After the Moors were driven from the area it was used occasionally for different uses including as a prison. Work to preserve it only began in the 1950’s.

After spending time around the amphitheater we decided to head up the hill to the Cathedral. We really enjoyed the walk thru the streets. After our experience yesterday with the huge crowds in Barcelona the relatively quiet streets of Tarragona were a treat.

It was only about 450 meters to the Cathedral, but it took us about 45 minutes to cover the distance as every few feet there were interesting buildings to photograph, or an interesting shop to poke around in. One square we saw had been built on top of the old Roman Circus and you could still see how the contours of the circus had shaped the layout of the square. We were charmed by the town.

The other thing that was fun about Tarragona is you would suddenly come upon an old Roman or Medieval wall that had been cleverly integrated into a more modern building. On one stretch of a Medieval wall you could see repurposed Roman stones that still had clear marks chiseled on them from the Roman times. Steve explained to me that the marks indicated which stone mason carved the rocks, almost like brands on live stock. So when it was time to be paid it was clear whose stones had been produced by who. It was a simple but effective way of accounting.

We finally reached the Cathedral and it was also a pleasant surprise. While Cathedrals are always impressive in size and form after a while they begin to look repetitive. The Cathedral in Tarragona had a unique entrance which we have not seen anywhere else. The entrance way had the typical shell structure around the doors but the walls on either side of the door had sculptures carved into them. As you enter the Cathedral you pass thru this line of statues.

We really enjoyed the entrance way and spent some time studying the statues and examining the copper door. It was another unexpected surprise in Tarragona.

We spent another 45 minutes just enjoying a stroll thru the streets of the town. There were interesting things to see around every corner and we all enjoyed just walking at a comfortable pace and taking in the sites as they were presented to us. To me this is a high compliment to the city of Tarragona. After we were done we walked to the bus stop and our bus was waiting for us there. 25 minutes later the bus deposited us in front of the campground and we returned to our motorhomes for a nice dinner ending with a walk on the beach for sunset.

Today was Sant Jordi day which is the Valentines day for the Catalans. We decided to head back into Barcelona for one more day before setting off for other parts of Spain so once again we were up bright and early to catch the bus to the city.

We started the day by heading to the old Cathedral in the Gothic district. What we didn’t realize was that Sant Jordi day was a very big deal in Catalonia. Many of the major streets down town were closed and there were more people about than were down town on Saturday.

The square in front of the Cathedral was busy, and unlike Saturday the majority of the crowd was speaking Catalan rather than a foreign language. Ton and I walked around the Cathedral while Steve and Kit went in for a tour of the interior of the cathedral.

Ton and I spent our time poking into the buildings that used to be residences for the clergy and rich people. We also spent some time in the building that is now the city archives for Barcelona. The courtyards of these buildings while of a similar design were each different enough to be interesting.

After spending some time around the cathedral and some meandering thru the narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter it was time for lunch. Our first choice was closed on Wednesday but Ton had spotted a place nearby and it turned out to be a great find. We got the last four seats available and had a wonderful meal with 4 Tapas, 3 beers, and 2 big plates of Paella. The food was wonderful and it came to around €23 per person.

The Market was our next stop. Las Ramblas was teeming with people, and the roads that run parallel to it were closed to handle the overflow. It was a good thing.

We spent about 30 minutes in the market and both Kit and Ton made some purchases despite the crowds. It was getting a little overwhelming for me so I was happy when we were done shopping.

Our final stop for the day was at one of Gaudis’ buildings. In honor of St. Jordi they had added Roses to the facade. It was very beautiful, but drew the biggest crowd we had run into for the day. The sidewalk in front Casa Batllo was the densest group of pedestrians I have seen since Tokyo. It was impossible to move without bumping into someone. Despite that Ton and Kit really enjoyed taking pictures while I hung out at the edge of the crowd.

At this point we were all pretty tired from the walking and the crowds so we found a coffee shop to hang out in until it was time to head to the bus for our trip back to the camp. We learned that Sant Jordi day is a really big deal in Catalonia, and a day when the local people can take over their own city.

Today we stayed around the campground while Kit and Steve got there motorhome set up. They are lucky to have gotten a brand new motorhome as their rental so it is sparkling clean. They spent some time getting their bags unpacked and set up. We then joined them on their first shopping trip to a large Spanish grocery. 2 1/2 hours later we emerged they had two carts full of food and supplies for their trip. We had a couple bottles of wine and a six pack of beer. By the time we were finished and they had packed away their food and supplies it was time for dinner. Kit treated us to a nice Thai meal while Steve and I taste tested a couple of Spanish beers. Tomorrow we are off to Barcelona again.

After a leisurely morning sleeping late and having a nice breakfast we headed into Mataro. It was Easter Monday so all of the shops in town were closed. The cafes were open and doing a booming business as families were gathering on the day off. After walking thru the town we headed down to the beach which was thriving.

Mataro has a large breakwater protecting its harbor with a very nice walkway on top with views to Barcelona. The harbor was full of recreational boats including a couple of large yachts, and some very nice sailboats. The walkway was quite full with people enjoying the almost perfect weather.

We enjoyed our excursion into Mataro but needed to head back to the campground as our friends Kit and Stephen were due to arrive today. We went back to the campground which was buzzing with activity with many departures, but just as many arrivals. By the end of the day the 400 spaces in the campground were full.

Kit and Stephen arrived and we spent the evening catching up and planning the next couple of days. We then had a nice dinner at the restaurant in the campground before settling in for the evening.

We spontaneously decided to take a day off today. Neither one of us really talked about it, it just happened. We slept in, and then lazed around the van for the morning. Usually we will have a conversation over breakfast about what to do, but it never came up. So instead we just enjoyed a beautiful day in the campground.

We last visited Barcelona in 2018 and really enjoyed the city. One of the reasons we like this campground is that it offers a shuttle into the center of the city. We signed up for the first bus of the day, and I was a little surprised when we got to the bus stop to find over 100 people waiting. It seems that everyone had the same thought to go into the city today. The campground had put on three busses for the 9:15 departure so everyone ended up with a comfortable seat.

When we got to the city it was raining a bit, and it would continue to rain off and on until early in the afternoon. We arrived pretty early and while things were bustling it was a fun bustling. Barcelona is one of the top tourism destinations in Europe and has been in the news lately due to local protests against over tourism. As the day went on the crowds got to be quite heavy in nearly every part of the city we visited and uncomfortably dense in the big tourist areas. I can sympathize with the locals, but also understand the attraction of this beautiful city to visitors.

Our first stop was the La Boqueria Market which is just off of Las Rambles. We have visited a lot of markets in Europe and this one is near the top of Ton’s favorites so she was excited to visit it again.

Ton was looking for a certain brand of Paprika so in addition to just enjoying the ambiance of the market we were checking out all of the stalls that sold spices. Ton really enjoys going from stall to stall looking at all of the displays. She could spend hours in these markets, but is kind to me.

We had thoughts of visiting one of the coffee shops in the market but it was packed so we passed. But after visiting several spice shops we found the brand Ton was looking for and bought three cans of paprika to take back to François. Once again La Boqueria did not disappoint us.

Our next stop for the day was the Gothic Quarter. This is one of the oldest parts of Barcelona and is full of cool streets lined with small shops and restaurants.

The Gothic Quarter also contains the Gothic Cathedral which is now the second most famous Cathedral in Barcelona. We came upon it from the back and wandered around the streets surrounding the Cathedral for a while before we arrived at the front.

The front was impressive, but it is no longer the Cathedral that attracts the most tourists. It has been eclipsed by Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in another part of town. It is still a nice Cathedral and was getting a lot of visitors when we went by.

Having done a fair bit of walking already we jumped into a churro shop we came across. We shared a small portion which consisted of one very thick cup of hot chocolate and four 10 inch long churro’s. Another great fried dough.

Since Gaudi has just been proposed for saint hood in the Catholic Church we decided to head over to one of the famous buildings he designed. It was a pretty good walk from where we were, but Barcelona is one of the most walkable cities we have toured. Even with the big crowds it is pretty easy to get around and is full of charming things to see.

After visiting Gaudi it was time for lunch. Ton had picked out a Tapas place she wanted to try in the Gothic District. Today was one of more inefficient walking days as we double backed on ourselves several times to check out a place that caught our interest.

The Bodega Biarritz is a small place and we were worried about getting a table, but we arrived 15 minutes after they opened and they gave us a table four on the condition that we be prepared to move to a smaller table if they asked. Later in the meal they did ask so we got to enjoy two different views of this restaurant.

The menu is interesting here. You get an appetizer plate of cheese and ham which is pretty standard, but the quality is high. But the chef picks the 8 tapas you receive. Each customer gets a slightly different set of Tapas. We received prawns, a dish of pork and mushrooms, a pigeon in rice, a beef and cheese dish, some chicken in a sauce, and a nice fish dish, a ham with potato and onion, and finally a vegetarian dish. They were all excellent and Ton loved the crispy prawns. We had a look at other trays that went by and they were indeed different than ours. It was one of the best Tapas places we have eaten in.

We still had a couple of hours to kill so we crossed back across town to the Arch of Triumph. When we got there we found a nice bench to sit at and recharge our batteries, (both our personal ones, and the ones on our I-phones) while doing some people watching. We then crossed back one more time (with an 800 meter detour do to my poor google map skills) to pick up our bus back to the campsite for the night.

Our friends Stephen and Kit will be joining us on Monday for about a month. They are flying into Barcelona and renting a RV. We selected a campground outside of Barcelona because it is large and we had good memories of being here from 2018.

As I said yesterday we booked our spot here a couple of weeks ago as it is Easter weekend. In Spain it is a four day holiday so we wanted to make sure we had a spot to meet them on Monday. The campground we are staying at has about 400 places and they are all full tonight. It is a bustling place right now.

When we arrived we settled in to a spot that is a tight fit for François. Ton asked where the laundry facilities were, and we she saw the large commercial Maytag washers and dryers the afternoon was settled. We now have a fresh load of clean clothes.

We spent the day watching the other campers settle into our spots. This is always good entertainment. On our little block of sites there are three Spanish families, one Italian with three cute girls, one Bulgarian couple, and us. We’ve been watching a Spanish girl who is about the same age as the Italian girls try to get up the nerve to join them in play. Hopefully she will.

The campground is is located about 100 yards from the Mediterranean, but unfortunately there is a four lane highway and two railway tracks between us and the water. We walked over and found an underpass to the ocean but when we got under the road and the tracks there was only a narrow dirt trail along the water. So we headed back to François to settle in for the evening.

We have been meaning to visit Girona for a while. It had a reputation as a real foody town with great restaurants which was our primary motivation. So this morning we shifted the 80 kilometers from Roses. On the way out of town we passed a car wash so we swung in and knocked some of the worst of the road dirt off François.

We found our aire near the center of town. It is a concrete parking lot surrounded by apartments, so not romantic, but very practical as it is only 1 kilometer from the center of the city.

The old town is built on a hill in the center of the city and has been a fortress town since the Romans. It was heavily fought over during the War of Spanish Succession in the early 1700’s when the French and Spanish fought over who was going to control Catalonia. The border was eventually settled with most of Catalonia being in Spain, and a small part around Perpignon in France. The Catalans have a slightly different feel for the story, but that is for another time.

Girona is located in a very strategic spot as it controls one of the best exits from Spain into France. As a result it has suffered 25 sieges and been captured 7 times. During the period between about 715 and 980 it was basically on the front line in the war between the Christian kingdoms of France, and the Islamic rulers of Moorish Spain. During that time it changed hands multiple times.

Girona also had a thriving Jewish community during the middle ages that occupied an area in the center of the city. This community was forced to convert to Christianity or were expelled by the Spanish kings in 1492 (a year familiar to American educated people for a different reason).

The Cathedral in the city is located on the highest point of land in the city. The Cathedral was built on a site that the Moors had converted to a Mosque. It is Spanish Gothic. It has become famous recently as it was used in the Game of Thrones. The massive steps in front of the church are quite impressive, and fans of the show will remember them as the steps that Arya Stark fell down while being chased in Season 6.

A lot of the walls of the city are still intact and you can walk large sections of them. We scrambled up onto them a couple of times and the views were spectacular.

The river is crossed by multiple pedestrian bridges. The most famous is a bridge built by Gustave Eiffel who is of course famous for the Eiffel tower. Most of the bridges are stone or concrete, but Eiffel’s bridge is of course made of Iron.

The architecture along the river was more modern, and reminded me of the Netherlands where buildings are built right to, or even overhanging the river. The river was pretty low right now, but must at times be much higher based on the design of the homes.

We also went down to the town market right before it closed. Once again we did some recreational shopping. Ton loves these old markets, and finds the regional foods to be fascinating. Even though it was close to closing time most of the vendors were still open and doing good business.

After the walking and climbing (my Fitbit said we climbed the equivalent of 161 flight of stairs today) we had a long discussion about what to eat. Despite Girona’s reputation as a foody town (it is supposed to have the most Michelin stars per capita in the world) we opted for a very light lunch and two glasses of Vermouth. I think we were both still enjoying our meal from yesterday in Roses.

We did have enough room to try the local dessert called Xuixo de Crema. They are another great example of why fried dough makes the best desserts and nearly every culture has their version of it.

Girona reminds me of why I like traveling without reservations or commitments. If not for our reservations tomorrow in Barcelona I think we would stay for another day here. Girona warrants another day of exploration, maybe more. But we were nervous about Easter weekend so we booked ourselves in the campground in Barcelona. So tomorrow we are off for Barcelona.

It was raining heavily when we woke up in the morning so we settled in and enjoyed our coffee. After we got going in the morning we checked the weather and the rain was supposed to stop around noon. We had been planning to go to Girona today, but decided to wait for tomorrow.

Around noon we decided to head out to the promenade and see what was happening today in Roses. On the walk down to the town it was still cold and gray, Ton took some pictures but was not happy with the result. She then told me that this region was famous for two different Prawns called Palamos and Carabinero, and handed me a list of three places we could find them.

After checking out all three we decided on a fourth restaurant we remembered from our last stay here. We had to wait to get a table, which is always a good sign. After about 10 minutes we were seated, but had spent the time trying to decide what to order. We were still undecided when we got to the table so we used the walk to the table to look at all of the dishes. We finally decided on a plate of shellfish and shrimp.

Ton was thrilled with the selection of different shell fish and shrimp including three different shrimp and a lobster, plus a nice mixture of clams, mussels, and razor clams. The meal was fantastic, Ton was very happy.

When we left the restaurant the sun had come out so Ton was very happy again. This time she was stopping every few yards to take photos as the sea, sky, and surrounding sites were perfect for photos.

The walk back was a very enjoyable for Ton, and I enjoyed people watching and watching Ton have fun.

I have talked about Roses in the past. It has an interesting role historically as a port during the Spanish empire and celebrates that. But mostly it is a great beach resort town with a nice vibe that really appeals to us.

It was a late start to the day, but in the end it turned into a great day at a place we really like.

We have been corresponding with a RV shop in Roses Spain about getting our privacy screen fixed. Yesterday they said they had a replacement screen available, but their technician said he thought he could fix the existing one. So our next stop for the day was set.

The drive was a little further than we thought it was going to be. When we started out looking at the distance we were going to cover on the Autopista (freeway) Ton and I guessed it was going to be a €40 toll. We were both wrong today there was no tolls. We arrived at the RV repair place and the tech looked at the problem and thru his interpreter (his wife) said it wont be elegant but it will work. He underestimated the quality of his work and while he was with us I had him fix one more small item. The repair was quoted at €700 in the Netherlands so the €108 we paid today was a great bargain.

We were at the campground by 3:30 just in time for it to rain. Ton cooked a nice dinner, and then declared her day over. I took a short evening walk and then came back to relax in François.