Day 66 - Sant Feliu to Blanes - Gorging in France ...Then Basquing in the Pyrenees - 2023

June 22, 2023

Day 66 - Sant Feliu to Blanes

Hot and Hilly

Today was our penultimate day of cycling. We didn’t have far to go but the coast hugging route we took along the GL-682 was very scenic, and very hilly. The sun was out in full force too, so it was also very hot.

Notwithstanding the heat, the views along the coast, and the relative lack of traffic between Sant Feliu and Tossa de Mar (the first 20 km of the ride) made it an excellent ride. At Tossa we had a nice shady lunch stop at a place well off the beach where we shared a pizza and a litre of cold fizzy water and pineapple juice each. After Tossa, the traffic picked up quite a bit so we split from the GL-682 at Lloret de Mar and picked up the GR-92 bike trail that more or less hugged the beach on trails and residential roads for the rest of the way into Blanes.

It was a gorgeous hot sunny day, and the beaches and coastline were beautiful. However the tourist development at all of the beaches and towns was starting to get a bit overwhelming … and it’s not high season yet.

The last few days along the Costa brava have really made us appreciate the relative isolation we’ve had just about everywhere else on this trip. It’s beautiful here, and if you’re a beach person, this may well be your Mecca. For us though, we’re glad we made it here and experienced it in a relatively quiet period. Tossa and lloret del Mar seemed to be getting uncomfortably crowded, for us at least, already.

We pulled into Blanes, our destination for the night, in the early afternoon. Blanes is ‘the Gateway to the Costa Brava’ and it feels like it. It looks like most tourists pass through the ‘gateway’ on their way to the more popular resorts further up the coast. There is a large stretch of magnificent beach here, but it had a much more low key tourist feel to it (a little more down market - in a good way IMHO).

Our hotel, Petit Palau, was located on the southern end of town a few blocks from the beach. It’s a more modern building with larger rooms and fully functioning AC - yeah! Given the heat and siesta time we cleaned up and just chilled in the room, literally, until it was time to venture out for dinner.

We’ve been unusually planned and deliberate for most of our dinners on this trip, a MAJOR deviation from what has been our historic pattern, but we figured we’d go back to doing things ‘the old way’ tonight. Around eight, we set off from the hotel in the direction of the water to see what we could stumble upon.

We made it three blocks, through the pretty plain streets, and stepped into Plaça Mare de Déu del Vilar. This very nice square behind the Parròquia Sagrada Familia (sounds like a very old church but was ‘modern; in the same sense as the curious one in el Pont se Suert) was ringed on three sides by bars and restaurants. All of them were pretty full of folks who were clearly locals and there was band setting up on one side of the square.

One of the restaurants, Cal Mut, had quite a few open tables (it was still only 8 - early by Spain standards) and it looked good - lots of seafood on the menu, a great terrace in the square and a modern open kitchen that looked really professional. We decided to grab a table here and thankfully they weren’t all booked.

The old ways of doing things still have their charm, this turned out to be a sensational night. The food we had for dinner, scallops, gambas, hake, cabbage, all grilled and a green salad accompanied by a wonderful Cava (why not - it’s the right area for it and we hadn’t had bubbles for a while!) was excellent, as was the service from the one wonderful wait-staff. But what really made the night though was the music and the atmosphere in the square.

The band (just a bunch of local guys … much like any other town in the world) struck up at about 9 pm and played what were obviously popular and well loved Spanish / Catalan tunes. A large number of people at all the tables ringing the square were clapping and singing along. There were kids and grannies dancing, groups of friends laughing and chatting. It was just great to be there and be part of it.

Winging it worked for us tonight.

Heart

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SOTD - Corizon Espinado, Santana

‘The Band’ was playing this, and the crowd was singing and dancing along, when we left for home. Perfect.