We spent the weekend in Toledo, spending time with family. Juanjo’s Mom was on a trip to Germany, so it was just the boys at home. They sat many hours together in the living room like this, papa watching sports on TV, son doing work on the computer. I spent time with them, and also went and saw Juanjo’s grandma. What a treat to be able to visit Juanjo’s family for the weekend (rather than having to cross an ocean to visit them)!
Last weekend Juanjo planned a surprise trip to Cadaques, a small town near the border with France. He rented a house in the old town and we drove there from Barcelona after finishing work on Friday. The drive was about 2 1/2 hours, so it was dark when we got there, and we had dinner and went to bed. The next morning, this was the view from our bedroom window:
Deep blue water sparkled in the morning sun. The whitewashed houses shone, the green mountains behind stood out against the blue sky, and the only sounds were birds and an occasional motorcycle in the distance. As you can imagine, breakfast in bed was in order.
Later on we we bundled up and went to explore the town. It’s a town famous for its art (Salvador Dali had a house nearby), and fishing, and isolation in a small harbor. There were few people, and we wandered the harbor, skipping stones into the bay.
We walked up through cold windy streets, noticing blue doors, whitewashed houses, and winding vines, barren now in winter.We sat in the sun by the water, listening to French tourists walk by, and dreaming about coming back for a week some day.
We had lunch in the old casino, now a cafe.
And in the afternoon, we went back to the house and read like cats in the sun, drinking tea and watching the clouds blow in.
On Sunday, we went exploring Cap de Creus park, a nature reserve that surrounds the town (and the largest coastal nature reserve in Spain). Cap de Creus is the northeasternmost tip of Spain, a mass of slate and scruffy grass jutting out into the Mediterranean. We could see the Pyrenees Mountains in the distance, and feel the cold of their snow on the northern winds that apparantly blow here all winter long.
We drove out to the lighthouse, and went for a hike to the edge of the sea, careful with each step as the cold, wintry wind was strong enough to throw us off balance.
I wish we could go back next weekend! We hear it’s nicer in the summer when the weather is warmer, but there was such a clear, wintry peacefulness to it in February that we’re glad to have gone when we did. Juanjo has set quite a high bar for our “surprise trips” in February…where am I going to find as wonderful a place in California next year? 😉
***
By the way, I want to say thank you for your comments, dear readers. It’s wonderful to know who visits us here!
The first week here we rode bikes down to the beach, late one night, and ate takeout pizza on the sand. I’ve been back with visitors, but we hadn’t been back together since September. This Saturday we headed back, taking bikes from our apartment down to the far end of the Barceloneta beach. We wandered down a pier and sat for a while, watching tourists wander, small children play on their scooters, and bike tours cycle by. It was the warmest, sunniest day in weeks, and I even noticed a roller-blader with a tank top on. Tired from the week, we relaxed for a while with our eyes closed, laying back on a fish-shaped bench.
After exploring the pier, we walked along the beach towards the port. The water was cold on our feet, but the sand felt good. It was nice to walk along the shoreline, dodging pebbles and watching birds. I even convinced Juanjo to take his shoes off too!
Yes compost. Yes Barcelona. In this 5th floor apartment, in the middle of the city, we are composting. I noticed the brown bins in the street a month or so ago, and then when Juanjo went to do some municipal paperwork he picked up the basket and the bags (which are made from potatoes, and biodegradable). He told me the woman began explaining how to compost, and he quickly reassured her that his wife knew what to do. For those of you who don’t know, I grew up composting. Long before people were talking about composting to save the environment, my parents were composting to use the soil for their garden. Since living in cities, I’ve had a guilty conscience about NOT composting. So it was very exciting the day Juanjo showed up with the pail and we started sending out food scraps back into usable earth, instead of landfills.
How about following the trend, San Francisco?
—
Do you compost? Would you like to? What stops you from starting?
People always talk about how one of the great things about San Francisco is how close to nature you are. In less than 20 minutes you can be at the beach, state parks, wetlands, or mountains. Turns out people love Barcelona for that reason too, and one of the nicest places is Montserrat, a monastery and natural park.
We drove there, but you can also take a train. Both leave you at the base of the mountain, where we took a hanging yellow cable car up to the monastery complex and start of the hiking trails.
The monastery is old, but visited often and now has other buildings around it, including a couple stores and restaurants. Judging by the number of buses that can fit in the parking lot, it gets busy. But we were there on a cold afternoon in January, and saw only a few families and young hikers.
After visiting the Montserrat Virgin (which makes this place one of Spain’s most popular pilgrimage destinations), we went for a bit of hiking up behind the monastery. The sun was already behind the mountain when we got there, and as the shadows got longer, the temperature dropped. This made for amazing silhouette pictures, but it also made us really glad we both had hats, scarves and gloves!
We plan to go back another day, getting there early so we can hear a boy’s choir sing at mass, and then take a longer hike into the mountains. Can’t wait!