So last weekend I returned to Spain's Costa Brava for the 3rd time in about a year's time. The purpose of this trip was to visit my mom and Jim who were vacationing there before taking a two week cruise back to the U.S. leaving from the port of Barcelona.
However, before leaving for Spain Diane came to Paris to stay with me for a few days. She toured the city some more while I worked and then on wednesday night her and I took off for Girona airport. Diane's visit was a surprise for my mom setup by Jim so of course at baggage claim my mom was rather surprised to find Diane standing there with me. Once that was all over we hopped in the car and headed about 20 minutes away to the coast to a small resort area called El Mas Nou. After chatting for a bit we decided to head to Barcelona the next day and then went to bed.
The next morning we woke up and headed to Barcelona. Having already been there twice before within the last year I was the official tour guide. Not really knowing much of Barcelona besides what I've already seen I took them to see the Sagrada Familia, Casa Batillo, and of course La Rambla. After enjoying some sangria on La Rambla we headed back home and called it a day.
Since we were only about 20 minutes from Girona we decided to make that our destination for the next day. So the next morning we woke up and after visiting the beach at the base of our resort we headed over to Girona to see what that city had to offer. We arrived with no map and no idea what to do. After we found the city center, found parking, found a map, and found the tourist office we were on our way. We had a quick lunch and then set out to see what the city had to offer.
We decided to split up so Diane and I headed for towards the main shopping/restaurant street and took that through the Jewish quarter and on to the Cathedral. After visiting the Cathedral we headed for the wall. Girona was once a walled city so there are still remains from the wall which you can walk on. However, much to our dismay the wall was locked and we were only able to get on certain parts of it. But of course we did some exploring and found a really cool park with remains from old buildings inside of it and wound up spending all of our time meandering through the park to see what it had to offer.
After doing this for a while we decided it was time to head back to the car to meet our mom and Jim, but not before doing a little shopping and picking up some jewerly.
The next day it was time for our mom and Jim to board their boat and that evening Diane and I would be boarding our plane to head back to Paris. So we once again hopped into the car and headed to Barcelona. We said our goodbyes and then Diane and I set out to see a bit more of Barcelona. This time I was able to see something I hadn't seen upon my previous visits. We headed first for Parc de la ciutadella which was a lovely park in the city center complete with a zoo, large fountain, and even a pond with paddle boats. After this we decided to head to the Picasso museum on my insistance since I had yet to see it. However, on our way there I realized I had infact already visited the museum on my first visit to Barcelona, so we just continued on down the street to the Cathedral. After the cathedral we strolled over to La Rambla where we visited the market for a few minutes and then continued on to a restaurant I had previously visited which I knew had some good paella.
Once we made our way to the restaurant we ordered up some paella and of course some cava sangria. We had a fantastic lunch till we realized we were running a bit late for our bus which would take us back to the airport. We paid and hauled it to the bus station where we managed to catch the bus and headed back to the airport and eventually back to Paris.
We got back to Paris rather late and the next morning Diane was on another flight heading back to the U.S. It was a rather quick trip for me but it was nice to get away for a while and spend some time with family.
You can see some pictures from this trip on my website under Spain. Hope you enjoy!
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