Exploring Costa Brava

The weekend was spent in the Catalonia region of eastern Spain, where we rented a car in Girona and roamed through beautiful villages.

The most beautiful of them all turned out to be Cadaques, situated on a bay near the Cap de Creus peninsula. Unfortunately you have to conquer a tiny serpentine road through the mountains to get there, and then somehow manage to drive your car along the narrow streets of Cadaques without hitting a pedestrian, cat or Vespa. Fortunately my vocabulary of Italian curses is a bit thin, so the locals had to do with my Swedish favorite expressions instead, like “Men hallå, flöö daj!”.

But after a short dip in the Mediterranean and a pizza with too much mozarella, the rough driving is almost forgotten.

The port of Cadaques.

Salvador Dalí had a house nearby at Port Lligat, and when you see the view, you understand why. There are several traces of the artist in Costa Brava, for instance in the tiny town Figueres where he was born in 1904. He was later buried in the same town, under the cupola of Teatre-Museu Dalí.

Another gem in the area is Castellfollit de la Roca, a medieval village built on top of a 50 meter high rock, surrounded by the rivers Fluvià and Toronell. The rock is a basalt formation, the result of river erosion of the lava from ancient volcanic eruptions which sculpted the stone. The 13th century church of Sant Salvador is dominating the skyline and we climbed the tower for a great view.

Castellfollit de la Roca.

The village Banyoles is most famous for the Lake of Banyoles, where the rowing events in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics took place. It’s worth a stop to walk along the lake, where a park bench turned out to be a good place for the breakfast picnic.

In the nearby area Santa Pau we climbed the old volcano, Volca de Santa Margarida, situated 700 meters above sea level. It’s not exactly Vesuvius, but still a nice contrast in the flat land.

It feels like we’ve only scratched the surface of Costa Brava, so I hope to be back soon.