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Our
first visit to the Costa Brava, destination l’Estartit,
was in July 1962. The tourist industry was in its infancy and flying
not an option so we took the ferry to France instead, in what turned
out to be a very rough Channel crossing. All around us our fellow passengers
were suffering from seasickness, but we repaired to the cafeteria for
lunch. Arriving in France we were shepherded towards our train for the
journey south. We had couchettes and shared with a couple from Derby.
During a conversation about unions, I having arrived in England from
Australia three years earlier and with the knowledge of the dockers’
unions holding the country to ransom as a national sport, said “I don’t
believe in unions”. “Don’t you?” said our travelling companion, “well,
I’m a big union man myself”. In spite of this rocky start we remained
friends and shared a magical holiday in their company.
At
Narbonne, the following morning, we were transferred to the train that
would take us into Spain and drop us off at Figueres, complete
with seats comprising of benches made from wooden slats. At Figueres
our tour representative met us and we boarded a “coach”, a bulbous
bus with a snub nose. My husband who was born in Africa would not have
been surprised to see chickens in crates on the roof. We travelled to
l’Estartit on long straight roads surrounded by flat agricultural
land. As we were nearing Torroella de Montgri the land was below
road level and we could see paddy fields with rice growing and pairs
of oxen with wooden yokes were ploughing the fields.
We
arrived to find that l’Estartit was a tiny fishing village with
one main street, a beach that stretched forever and very picturesque,
nestling under the Roca Maura that towered up behind. The food
in the hotel was basic but very good and a bottle of wine cost eighteen
pesetas. Some of the other tourists were not too sure of the food, as
this was an era when foreign food was treated with suspicion, but we
had seconds of everything and our waistlines grew rounder by the day.
Dining in the evenings was particularly interesting, as the electricity
would suddenly extinguish although we later discovered that other buildings
had light!
One
always has the experience of an eccentric; ours was a young Englishman
who bought a straw hat on arrival and tried to sell it back to the shop
of departure. As he shared our table and didn’t approve of women drinking,
he would never pour me a glass of wine and avoided sharing the cost if
possible.
The
representative, an Australian, and his wife, who worked in a booth selling
excursions to Barcelona, Montserrat and bullfights at Lloret
de Mar on Sundays, became lifelong friends. They lived and worked
in Barcelona and eked out their meagre earnings by doing a second job
in the summer. It was a holiday of a lifetime and I will never forget
the poor donkey who used to come every day to stand in the sun with a
pannier of ceramics on its back to tempt the tourists to buy from the
owner.
We
retuned in 1964, but this time flew to Perpignan. The airport
for Girona was being talked about and when built became a military
airbase before the arrival of planes bringing in the tourists.
This
holiday was different in as much as we spent the evenings with our friends,
who were still working for the tour operator. We used to play scrabble
and drink tomato juice - alcohol came later. On some evenings we visited
a bar where gypsies played and danced flamenco. One night, at about two
o’clock in the morning, we were walking home along the main street when
we had a jerry can emptied over us – perhaps we were making too much
noise!
We
went on a few excursions this time, including Torroella de Montgri,
an old market town. Market day is always on Monday and there the narrow
streets are filled with stalls selling spices, dried fruits, cold meats,
fruit, vegetables, handbags, belts and kitchen utensils to name but a
few. In the summer the fruit and vegetable stalls are groaning under
their verdant weight with an explosion of colour.
Another
excursion was to l’Escala, another fishing village, where the
boats were winched up onto the beach in the centre of the village and
the nets laid out to be mended and dried on a quay at the side of a small
bay. L’Escala is situated beside Ampurias, reputed to be
the most important Greco-Roman site in Spain. It used to be a port and
to this day there are the remains of part of a Greek wall dating from
the earlier occupation. In 1964 the ruins were not fenced in, as now.
The coach was parked in the woods on a scorching hot day and as we walked
through to the ruins there was the heady scent of pine needles and a
carpet of them underfoot. We were able to wander about at random and
later to visit then museum building to see some of the recovered artefacts.
So far only 25% of the excavation has been done.
The
pièce de résistance
was the afternoon at the bullfight – once and never again. We
were to witness “El Peralta” who fought the bull from horseback. Of course
it was cruel, but although I do not support the practice, it was spectacular,
graceful and colourful.
Having
fallen in love with this area thirty years previously, in 1992 we sold
up in England and have moved down to live in l’Escala. We have
a better quality of life than we would have otherwise and if the sun
shines in the winter we can sit outside on the terrace for lunch. And
a big plus, the dogs never get muddy.
copyright (c) 2002 catalunya.co.uk
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