I’m a bit behind as I’ve been doing a fair bit of travelling about but I spent last week in Lloret de Mar in Catalonia with my pal Lisa aka LVT. The first thing I have to say about Lloret is don’t ever visit or stay there! It’s a soulless, somewhat tacky beach resort with little to no character or culture. In fact it reminded me in parts of the Koh San road in Bangkok.
The beach, made up of pebbly sand, cigarette butts and miscellaneous litter isn’t terrible if you don’t mind cramming in amongst the hordes of people.We found that it was best to visit in the evening once the crowds had subsided.
The Airbnb wasn’t entirely a success either. It was stiflingly hot, like a Sauna, no A/C and smelled strongly of mould. We knew it would be a bit basic but it certainly fell short of expectations. To top things off we had some delightful neighbours in the apartments upstairs, a group of Italian ‘youths’, who made more noise then I even knew possible. They would generally shout and sing literally at the top of their voices most of the evening until 12-1am when they would go out and then return in the early hours where they seemed to take things to the next level, having clearly kept a few decibels in reserve. Lloret seemed to be teaming with similar groups of youths. Lisa eventually coined the term ‘Douchebag Central’ which seems fitting.
In truth, it could have been worse I guess and we pretty much just used the apartment as a base.
We did find one nice thing to do in Lloret. If you go for a 30-40 minute walk to the next beach you can find the Jardines de Santa Clotilde, a lovely ornate gardens set up on the cliffs. A very peasant place to spend the afternoon with plenty of shade to take a break from the sun and great views out to the sea. It also seems to be a hotspot for instagramming and it was quite amusing/baffling to watch several groups of young ladies endlessly pouting, tucking in, and sticking out whilst they spent what seemed forever setting up the ‘perfect shot’.
Thankfully, there was much to do nearby:
Tossa de Mar
Just along the coast and a short bus ride away we visited Tossa which is a more typical Catalonian sea side town. It had a quieter, more civilised feel to the place with nice eateries and little shops selling all manner of clothes and trinkets. More interesting was the Old Quarter where there were some Roman ruins dating back to the 12th Century, old city walls to walk along and explore and some quaint little houses. We climbed up the cliff through the old part of town and above the walls to be rewarded with some spectacular views out to sea, along the coast and back down to the beaches. We spent the afternoon on a smaller beach in a little cove behind the walls which was lovely.
Girona
My favourite part of this bit of the trip. The city of Girona. I hadn’t really heard of it before but it was just a 40 minute bus ride from Lloret and is a really beautiful city steeped in History, again going back to the Romans. You have to head for the old part of the city. I feel like I’m developing a bit of thing for city walls but these were incredible, especially as they date back to the 14th century (although I believe they’ve recently been restored). I don’t think Lisa was in entirely keen on the climb up to the top in the sweltering midday heat but I thought it was worth it. They’re bloody high and when we started to walk along them we had no idea how extensive they were. Once up you get some fantastic views out over the city and the wall just keeps going on and on. It must have been over a kilometre. Following it all the way we were eventually led down to the gardens of Girona Cathedral. The Cathedral itself was spectacular and truly awesome. We spent some time wondering around the old Jewish quarter which has some interesting architecture and there were some pretty views to be had from several of the bridges that span the river, one of which was by Gustave Eiffel. Imagine braking a bit off the Eiffel Tower and plonking it across a river. All-in-all, a really enjoyable visit.
This was intended to be the relaxing start to the trip before I headed off in search of the East and it certainly was. It was nice to have some company and some slow time before setting off on my own.
Wandering Henry 