La Costa Brava

Ryan Air flies from Shannon, Ireland to Girona Spain for 29 Euros one way. I’m not sure how this airlines manages to make a profit, but evidently it does. Everthing is used to generate revenue, even the seat-backs have ads plastered to them. And everything offered on the plane is for sale. They also manage to save a bit by flying into the smaller airports which probably have smaller usage tarrifs. Both Shannon and Girona are off the beaten track.


After landing in Girona we lucked out on an upgrade to a nice BMW. We drove South to the Costa Brava for a little Bungalow place in the town of San Feliu de Guixols. Everyone speaks Catalan in this area near Barcelona, which sounds a bit like Spanish mixed with French. However, Catalonia is offficially part of Spain, and the locals don’t mind speaking Spanish to tourists - although they probably do mind speaking it to Spaniards. It’s been a while since I’ve used my Spanish, but we soon got into the flow.

The kids were happy to spend most mornings in the chilly pool, - we managed to get to beach a couple of times, and explore the cities of Sant Filieu and Girona. The streets were narrow little cobblestone paths, obviously built for horses, not BMWs. A couple of times I was concerned for the side mirrors (should have gotten that extra coverage).

Dali is from these parts, and we managed to get up to the popular Dali Museum, down the road in Figueres. We saw a good portion of his stuff, no not the melting clocks, not sure where those are.

On our second to last day we drove down the autopista to the French border. The speed limit was 130kph, but everyone was going 150kph, so I joined the crowd. It felt like about 80kph in that heavy, noise dampened BMW.

Having gotten used to the US Mexican border, and pre EU borders back in the early 90s, I was shocked that the Spanish-French border in the Pyrenees mountains was completely unmanned. Everyone just drove through, not even any guards. These days in the US, even the borders between states are more heavily guarded than that.

On our day trip to France, we stopped at a winery and got a case of cheap French plonk, to share with Kelly’s rellies back in Eire, and stopped in the town of Perpignon. Language-wise we were completely lost. The only word I knew was "formage”. I hoped no one broke a leg - “Ow, I broke my formage.”
We found the streets and round-abouts much more chaotic than in Spain, and the drivers more aggressive. I only got flipped off once.

After this, we’re off for a last few days of Ireland - getting cold now, and then the big jump to the land of the rising sun.

Eire

We've been staying in a 200 year old stone house in Neenagh, Ireland with Kelly's Aunt and family. At night the cold seeps through the stone and makes you put on a pair of socks or two. One thing you don't get in the New World is much of a sense of age. Here, the land is dotted with the remains of human habitation - some over a thousand years old. This house is part of the new housing development, but those old standards. Still it's a lot of fun to see the old cable powered bell system on the wall used to summon the servants from the dank basement. I tried to order a brandy, but unfortunately the system doesn't work anymore.

The town itself consists of a couple of busy streets lined with small shops which look to have been around for a couple of hundred years as well. No shopping centres, Mcdonalds, or other fast food joints have made it here. There are over 60 pubs though, and that seems to be the thing to do most nights.

The city museum was interesting, it had a replica of a classroom from circa 1900. I played evil Irish schoolmaster and rapped knuckles.

The weather is changing, winter is definitely coming and the smell of burning peat hangs in the air. Time... to go.