Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Costa Brava!

As we headed south to leave Spain, I was definitely sad that our time in France was at an end (in case you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm a pretty hardcore Francophile). But I was certainly ready to pass the translator hat to Sarah, and luckily for all of us, Sarah's Spanish is about eight million times better than my French.

On our way out of St. Rémy, we stopped at Glanum, an ancient ruined Roman village, but since we had a long day of driving ahead of us, we decided to skip it when we realized it was going to take while to get through it. But mom did get to take a picture with an olive tree, so it wasn't a wasted stop, lol.

On our drive out of France, we saw some of the most absolutely beautiful scenery that I will probably ever see in my life. The snow capped Pyrenees were to our right, and the beautiful Mediterranean ocean was on our left. It was just unbelievable to see those two extremes all in one car. The vineyards were also cool to see in this area, as they were all growing on incredibly streep hillsides. Glad I'm not the one that has to pick those suckers!

On our right side....

And on our left side....pretty amazing!


The vineyards on hills

Finally, we crossed into Espagna and after that it was a quick drive to Roses, where our hotel was located. We were right on the sea, which was pretty cool! As soon as we got checked in, we hopped back into the car and took the 20 minute windy (in both pronunciations of that word!) road to Cadaques, a small, beautiful town that we wanted to check out. We actually intended to visit the Dali museum there, but arrived to late, so instead we did a little bar hopping to try out some Spanish tapas! Muy delicioso! We did a little bit of wandering around Cadaques, but they had a mistral-like wind going on that was VERY cold, so mostly we just drank wine and ate food and admired the picture perfect scenery. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, let me tell you.

The view from the hotel in Roses
The beautiful Town of Cadaques

Our first pinchos (tapas), yum!

Little restaurant on the sea

I was probably hiding in an alleyway, it was too coooold for me on the water!

Dad's dinner

Tuesday morning, we got up and hopped back in the car(woohoo!), but only after dipping our feet in the Mediterranean right outside the hotel. Brrrrrr! It was time to drive to Tossa de Mar, my new favorite place in Spain. And since we took the highway instead of back roads, it actually took an acceptable amount of time to get there.

I am so cold! Shoes back on please!

Dad's feet in the Mediterranean

Tossa de Mar was absolutely incredible. There aren't enough adjectives in the world to describe the beauty of this place, I'm so glad we went! We spent most of our time there walking around and dropping our jaws. Every time you turned a corner the view was more amazing. When we reached the veeeerry top, there was a restaurant, and we couldn't turn down food with that kind of view! We had some more yummy tapas and sangria. And Sarah and I had hot chocolate, and let me tell you, the hot chocolate in Spain is like nothing I have ever tasted. It's basically like a melted candy bar, it's so thick you can eat it with a spoon. That sounds a little gross, but it is seriously one of the best things I've ever tasted!

It's so beautiful!

Little restaurant at the very top...


With this for a view! Woot woot!


Post sangria shot

After our absolutely lovely afternoon in Tossa de Mar, we made the 1.5 drive to Barcelona, which was relatively peaceful until we were actually IN Barcelona, at which point it was just crazy town. After getting lost a few times, we finally realized that we had to drive partway down what appeared to be a sidewalk, and then down a couple of roads that were much narrower than most driveways. Once we FINALLY made it to our apartment, Sarah and Dad took the car back to the rental place (God bless them), experiencing even more "fun" driving in Barcelona.

Goodbye, Picasso! You were a blessing at times, but we will not miss you!

We were pretty exhausted from the day, so we decided to walk around close to our apartment and just around the corner was an adorable Italian place. Kind of silly to eat Italian on our first night in Barcelona, but it was really good and we had an adorable waiter who was from Rome. Tomorrow and Thursday we will get acquainted with Barcelona on foot, which I'm anticipating will be much better than Barcelona in the car!

 

 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As usual, great pictures! I hope the trip has been a blast. - Chuck