Saturday Drive Up the Coast

One of the things I’d been looking forward to about this year was taking small weekend trips. Until now, we’ve mainly spent the weekends working though, or have done family trips to Toledo. But yesterday we finally took a meandering trip just the two of us, up the coast of Barcelona to the Costa Brava and a small medieval town called Pals. Mostly driving and stopping and looking around, the point was to explore the coastline north of us. I used to do a lot of this when I was younger and first learned to drive, taking a day to explore the area around my home.

What did we find? That there are stretches of the Mediterranean north of here, especially closer to Barcelona, that are completely taken over with tall, cheap vacation apartment buildings. Nice beaches, but almost no charm in the towns. But then as we got further north, and the road got windier, there were more open spaces of nature and coastline. I usually get carsick on these kinds of roads, so I drove, but unexpectedly, Juanjo got completely carsick! That put a damper on things, but I drove as slowly as I could, pulling over to let cars pass, and we stopped often. The day was partly cloudy, with spots of warm sun, but it was definitely winter, and we didn’t see many people out. Most of these places come alive in the summer when everyone is on vacation, but are ghost towns the rest of the year. The coastline reminded me a lot of California in parts, especially Central and Southern California.

We finally reached our destination in time for a late lunch. Juanjo was feeling so sick though that he rested a little, and we wandered the town of Pals before eating our sandwiches in a park. Pals is up on a hill, not on the coast but near it, with an old bell tower, church, and winding Medieval streets. Very picturesque old town center.

Hopefully we will take more excursions like this in future weekends. It’s a good way to not work all weekend, and get to know the area around Barcelona. Maybe a southern coastal route next time?