Where’s Colin? He's in some designated motorhome roadside parking in Platja d'Aro. I hesitate to call it an Aire as the (winter-only) Aire, where the services are located, is just down the road and this really is just a designated parking area.
Our night in the car park in Girona was quiet enough and at first light this morning I was glad that we'd decided to stay there, rather than decamping to the nearest Aire and returning this morning. At 7am cars had noticeably started arriving in quantity and by 8am we would have struggled to have found a space, soon afterwards it was beyond full.
With our morning runs successfully completed (after another injury layoff, Mick managed a gentle 3km without aggravating his poorly calf; I did an easy 10km), it was mid morning by the time we made it into town and 11 before we arrived at the Jewish Museum.
There we learnt about the history of the Jewish Quarter of Girona, mainly through a huge amount of written information, with a few artefact exhibits thrown in. Thankfully the majority of the information was quadrilingual, including English; it would have been a short and pretty meaningless visit otherwise. Perhaps only because it's Monday, when it's not expected that museums will be open, we had the place to ourselves.
Surprisingly, Mick wasn't minded to have another four course lunch today, so we didn't go back to the place I had earmarked but instead returned to Colin, via a bakery.
Over lunch Mick was presented with two options: inland or to the coast. He voted for the coast, so over to Platja d'Aro we came for surroundings about as far removed from those of Girona as it is possible to get. The view out of the driver's side of Colin isn't bad, but my verdict on the beachfront was 'ugly' thanks to the hotchpotch of high rises which line the promenade.
As has become our expectation at coastal resorts, most property seems to be shut up for the winter, so it was a surprise when, having walked north to the end of the Prom, we returned via the main street to find it not full of closed tourist tat shops, but proper town retail outlets. This place must be bustling in summer! Today, however, I saw only one person browsing along the entire length of the road.
Our night in the car park in Girona was quiet enough and at first light this morning I was glad that we'd decided to stay there, rather than decamping to the nearest Aire and returning this morning. At 7am cars had noticeably started arriving in quantity and by 8am we would have struggled to have found a space, soon afterwards it was beyond full.
With our morning runs successfully completed (after another injury layoff, Mick managed a gentle 3km without aggravating his poorly calf; I did an easy 10km), it was mid morning by the time we made it into town and 11 before we arrived at the Jewish Museum.
There we learnt about the history of the Jewish Quarter of Girona, mainly through a huge amount of written information, with a few artefact exhibits thrown in. Thankfully the majority of the information was quadrilingual, including English; it would have been a short and pretty meaningless visit otherwise. Perhaps only because it's Monday, when it's not expected that museums will be open, we had the place to ourselves.
Surprisingly, Mick wasn't minded to have another four course lunch today, so we didn't go back to the place I had earmarked but instead returned to Colin, via a bakery.
Over lunch Mick was presented with two options: inland or to the coast. He voted for the coast, so over to Platja d'Aro we came for surroundings about as far removed from those of Girona as it is possible to get. The view out of the driver's side of Colin isn't bad, but my verdict on the beachfront was 'ugly' thanks to the hotchpotch of high rises which line the promenade.
As has become our expectation at coastal resorts, most property seems to be shut up for the winter, so it was a surprise when, having walked north to the end of the Prom, we returned via the main street to find it not full of closed tourist tat shops, but proper town retail outlets. This place must be bustling in summer! Today, however, I saw only one person browsing along the entire length of the road.
Ho! A couple of ideas, for what they're worth. Besalu is an interesting medieval (v small) town. If you fancy an alternative route back into France then Girona > Olot > Ripoli > Ribes de Freser > Puigcerda and so to Ax-les-Thermes would be interesting. From Ripoli you can take the extraordinary rack 'n' pinion train (locally known as The Zipper, natch) which takes you up to the deeply strange complex at Nuria (no road access, but a monster hotel, basilica and a spectacular view up to the ridge you trundled along earlier this year). There's an excellent campsite in Puigcerda, set up for all comers - just about 2km NE of the town (best place to eat in town is Bar Kennedy, in the main square). Have fun! HMP3
ReplyDeleteAs you'll have seen, we did get as far as Olot, as well as visiting Vic and revisiting Girona, but any further inland northward travel was vetoed on the basis of the snow and low temperatures (in fact, we would have journeyed into Spain via Ripoll, had it not been for the cold). We will, at some point, take a trip to the Pyrenees a little earlier in the year, so as to visit places that were omitted on this trip. (For the avoidance of doubt, it's not us that can't withstand cold temperatures, but Colin. Technically, he can go down to about -15 without damaging the water system, as we have proved in the Cairngorms in the past, but to do that we need either mains electric or more battery capacity than we carry.)
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