Besalú

We both slept well, a relaxed sleep. I was up first making porridge, the others surfaced a little later and we all sat down and ate slices of Veronica's delicious freshly baked fruit loaf made with spelt flour. Veronica's brother Steven who lives nearby, called in to meet us and we chatted together in the sunshine on the patio until midday. 

Then we drove across country north west 50km to visit the medieval city of Besalú in the foothills of the Pyrenees. I'd never heard of it before, but apparently it was a strategic influential trading centre in ancient times whose political and economic influence reached across the Pyrenees into France. 

We decided to have lunch before walking around and went to a busy restaurant by the visitor centre, where we had a three course menu of the day for €15 each, with drinks £67 for four people. We'd pay that for two of us in Britain. Amazing value and very good food. They were so busy they'd run out of fish and there was no veggie option for Clare, but the chef worked a minor miracle and delivered a plate for her with freshly cooked hake and prawns. I had chicken braised with lemon slices, succulent and tasty. While we were eating there was a very heavy down pour which persisted until our meal was over. It was drizzling when we left to visit the town. The cobbled streets and slopes were too risky for Veronica's electric scooter so they stayed safe and urged us to explore on our own.

The town is set on the north bank of a steep wooded river valley, approached by a very unusual bridge with fortified gate in the middle of its two spans which are set at a slight angle to each other. The cobbled  streets are narrow with four storey houses and there are two large plazas, one of which has arcades in front of the shops making an open air trading space under cover in poor weather. In the larger plaza there is a romanesque abbey church over a thousand years old, simple and austere and beautifully cared for. We visited and I had quite a lengthy chat in Spanish with the lady who welcomed visitors with an information leaflet, and charging one euro to go in an have a look around. After three quarters of an hour in the drizzle, we rejoined Veronica and John in the car park and headed back to L'Escala. As we drove east, the sky cleared and there was no more rain. 

Clare and I then went for a walk past the ancient mill across the road from the house, up a lane into a hamlet with a cluster of well restored ancient farm houses, containing two fortified towers of refuge which inhabitants could resort to when the port nearby as invaded by Berber pirates in 17th and 18th centuries. There were several nightingales singing as we walked along. On the distant north western horizon one of the Pyrenean peaks was still adorned with snow, an amazing sky in the sunset hour, with broken storm clouds lit by rays of light.

We had soup for supper when we returned, and after uploading photos and writing this I was more than ready for bed