I decide to visit Tossa de Mar just up the coast. But what a great coastal drive – hairpins, dips and tunnels – super stuff. And the sun was out requiring driver sunnies! Tossa is so much (sorry) classier than Lloret. I resisted the Alicante imperative to visit the castle given the streams of people zigzgging their way up. My only quibble was that the useful boardwalk was plastic! Please! Parking was easy, coffee was good and the sun was out. Fairly flat walking but one or other medication seems to be working.
Back in the car it’s off up the much improved coast road to Palamos. I remember one trip a few years back when I had to stop for my friend Ada to get out and throw up as the curves got to her. The road while still exciting is a bit smoother now! Palamos harbour is a lovely mix of working fisherfolk and trendy yacht folk. But I always enjoy a stroll around the fine waterfront. It does have a touristy bit but you can exclude that.
Then it is off to Begur on a familiar road but again much improved since I was here regularly back in the eighties and early nineties. Dual carriage makes the previous lethal overtaking – especially in a UK drive car – less common and I arrive to see that our nearest Ceramica is now closed and is now a repository for rusting mechanical diggers etc. Shame – we bought a few things there. Worse, the restaurant next to the Spar is no more. How many meals have we taken there after the drive through France? No menu just what was good that day. So down through Sa Fontansa to drive by our house. We sold it to a Dutch couple and they must have led a veritable invasion. There are more yellow NL plates than Spanish on the roads around here. Since we sold up they have added a pool and an extension so it is quite a place now. And as so often there were men working in the garage – come back Paco Heredia!
Begur still holds its charm with the castle and historic centre and its lovely bays surrounding it. I head off to one of these Sa Tuna for lunch on the promenade. Clams with bacon and garlic go down well with some fresh bread and a cool glass of local Catalan rosat wine – again just the one. Just after Dee’s father died we brought her mother with us on a trip to France and Spain and rented the little blue shuttered cottage on the left for a blissful week’s holiday.
Then back to Begur for a post-lunch coffee. I was really, stupidly, pleased to find the shop where I used to buy our daily bread, the Fleca La Palma, still in operation. The church and the main square are still as I remember them – a few new names on bars and restaurants but many that provided good times in the past are still in business.
We always had a soft spot for Torroella de Montgri – Dee and I once climbed to the top of the castle on the mont. Today it was just a wander through the streets and a glass of zero beer (ugh! Too sweet) in the square before returning to the car to find a ticket as I didn’t check that parking was no longer free between 2 and 6 as it used to be. Times change after 20 odd years.
The drive back to Lloret through a surprisingly still fairly green Ampurdan plain was pleasant. The rice fields at Pals had all been harvested perhaps a little earlier than usual. Rosa later explained that after the hot summer there had been quite a lot of rain, as I saw on Wednesday, so things had greened up a bit. The journey was easy except for a slow re-entry to Lloret with evening traffic, giving me time to admire the Queen Vic and the Monster Disco – no I won’t – have a quick shower and head for a nearby bar for a light supper of anchovies and aubergine with honey and a little wine with alcohol.
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