Another day, another stop on my European tour – or so it seems. I arrived back in Madrid from Prague late last Thursday night, only to hit the road to Galicia the following day, where we were met with nothing but sunshine and blue skies. Below, a few more iPhone shots from my few days of play in Spain’s northwestern-most region.

This weekend, I’m off to Asturias…

Streets of Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

Cabo de Home

Aldán

Before we hit the road and head to Besalú, I want to introduce you to a peculiar little place we stopped by near Girona – Banyoles. It’s got all the pueblo essentials: a Plaza Mayor, sunny terrazas for tapas and café, cute old folks taking paseos. Check, check and check.

I suppose it’s most noteworthy for its lake, which was the rowing location for the ’92 Olympics and also for the World Rowing Championships in 2004. That’s cool.

But there’s one other thing that I think it’s famous for – rather, that I’VE decided it’s famous for: These river thingies (oh my brilliant and vast vocabulary!) lining the streets. They’re like modern-art canals that kiss the city walls and slither around its corners. I became obsessed.

Sure they might just seem like silly water canals running through the city, but they caused my imagination to run wild. Like, how often do kids fall in them? What about the elderly? And do staggering drunks ever take a tumble?

Being the curious question-asker that I am, I fired off an email to my friends (let’s pretend we’re friends) at the tourism office, and sure enough, they satisfied my curiosity.

The “river thingies” are actually called recs, and come from a medieval infrastructure (measuring 33 kilometers in length – oh snap!) originally created to water cultivated land, and eventually to generate factory mills. The artificial versions – that I suppose more or less form the basis for what we see now – were actually created by brilliant Benedictine monks from nearby Monasterio de Sant Esteve sometime after the 9th century. Neato, right?

And as hazardous as they might seem, the recs apparently don’t cause much of a problem. Locals are used to them – in fact, if anything they serve as entertainment for little kiddies who like to splash in them, or simply let their paper boats set sail.

So there you have it. A cute little story about a cute little town and the river (ish) that runs through it.


Disclosure: I traveled through Catalonia as a guest of Charming Villas Catalonia. Rest assured that I’m keeping it real – all opinions are entirely my own.

Just a quick hello from the Czech Republic, where I’ve spent the last three days trekking around Prague, getting lost in random villages, and eating potatoes like they’re going out of style. More to come in future posts!

Hope you are all having a marvelous week!

Prague

Kutná Hora

I departed Girona feeling like I’d left a piece of my heart behind, but it was time to move on to our next destination: Cadaqués. The journey wouldn’t be easy, though, requiring a twisty turny drive up and over the mountains to the secluded fishermen villages at their base.

Stomachs all topsy-turvy, we arrived in Cadaqués, its cluster of villages, and our ludicrously glamorous villa (no joke – details in a future post!). The area is indeed so remote that until only about a century ago – when the curvy highway was constructed – people living there were virtually isolated from the rest of the region. As our tour guide would later tell me, her grandfather knew Cuba (by boat, of course), long before he ever knew Figueres – a city just over 20 miles way. This also apparently explains why the area maintains a rather distinctly strong Catalán accent. Just a few little nuggets of odd goodness hinting at Cadaqués’s charming peculiarity.

And peculiarity is an understatement, because nearby Portlligat claims bragging rights as Salvador Dalí’s home from 1930 until he passed away in 1989. Only made available to the public in 1997, his house serves as the ultimate peek into the artist’s imagination. A Mr. T-style taxidermied polar bear, a slew of mannequins, and eggs, lots of eggs. I decided that I really liked this fellow Dalí. He was quirky, but measured, goofy, but pulled-together…and dude, he had a pretty sweet pad.

With our minds caught somewhere between reality and surreality, we took a little drive up to the cliffs of Cap de Creus. Perched above the Mediterranean Sea, we sat at a cafe to sip on cappuccinos and nosh on the region’s champagne-cork-shaped pastry, called taps dolços, before heading back for a tour of the city.

Tour guide in tow, we traversed the alleys of Cadaqués, oohing over the white buildings with blue doors, and ahhing over the zigs and zags of the slate-cobbled streets. Another fun Cadaqués fact: nearly an estimated third of its population emigrated to Cuba in the early 20th century. The successful ones that returned then erected dazzling homes, which to this day still stand out among the rest (pause and imagine a fancy house, as I don’t happen to have a decent picture – oops!)

The next morning, I rose early for a run, to somehow mentally justify the feast the night before (yes, there was another feast, and you’ll still have to wait to hear about it!). After weaving through olive orchards, around a cemetery and over the hill into Cadaqués, I finally realized my captivation with the rising sun was impeding any effort to actually burn calories (plus, let’s be honest, running kind of sucks).

So I returned to the pebbly shoreline of Portlligat, where I plopped down on the cement embankment, dangling my sneakers just above the calm shallow water. With Dalí’s house just feet behind me, I turned off my music and listened to the sound of the sunrise. Water lapping, a breeze rustling through Dalí’s olive trees, my thoughts fading off somewhere in the distance. Sigh…my heart skipped a beat….I totally had a crush on Cadaqués.

Too bad one more rendezvous awaited. The next day, it was off to Besalú.


Disclosure: I traveled through Catalonia as a guest of Charming Villas Catalonia. Rest assured that I’m keeping it real – all opinions are entirely my own.

Colorful hanging houses that line a bridge-crossed canal? Girona tourists might do a double take thinking they’ve made a wrong turn, ending up in Venice or Spain’s capital of hovering homes, Cuenca. But what a lovely wrong turn that would be, as this Catalán town – just over an hour away from Barcelona – will capture your traveling heart.

I’m no stranger to the cities and villages that crisscross the Iberian Peninsula. I never tire of them, but at the same time, many of them do start to look a tad similar, right down to the darling grandpas with their canes and messenger caps.

Girona caught my attention, though. It was love at first sight. Un flechazo, as they say in Spanish.

And I fell hard for the over-2000-year-old city with switchback streets that stagger across the hillside. Over the river, between warm-hued buildings, and up the never-ending steps of the gothic cathedral (previously the site of an even older cathedral that once served as a mosque) – I was enamored of my new Catalán discovery.

From the cathedral, we slithered down alleyways, under arches and into one of the largest preserved Jewish quarters in Europe. Then we trekked over bridges, and past cozy cafés that summoned my friend Cheryl and me to stop for a much-needed caffeine boost. The refuel would have to wait, though.

Locals indulging in their primera copa mingled in the streets outside bars, teasing our growling tummies and wine-deprived taste buds. Little did we know we were on the verge of a nine-course meal – one that would seal the deal on my Girona love affair. But, as usual, I must reserve discussion of food for a separate post, or risk going on an all-too-common tangent….a tangent about mind-blowing jamón cream sauces or, I don’t know, artichoke hearts (which until two weeks ago, I hated) nestled in a sweet sobressada that tasted so good it nearly brought me to tears. Yes, this must wait for another post.

Following our feast, we returned to our rustic countryside villa, nestled below a castle-topped hillside, along an orchard of trees. I thought I’d met the one – THE pueblo – until the next day, when I was introduced to Cacaqués.