Beautiful Calella de Palafrugell on the Costa Brava

At a little before 1400 by the World and Spanish clock—we exit the bus in the middle of the street above a no-name coastal town. This is strange. ( I later learn the name of the town is Calella de Palafrugell.)

Finally, on the Costa Brava, it is all about the water. The views. The lunch. We climb. Descending, we walk, meandering along the low wall that protects the unwary from falling to their death on the rocky ledge below.  I lean over the wall, peeking at the water—greens and blues and aqua. Shimmering satin. Ice. Crystal. I want to jump in. No wonder the wall.

In the town center of Calella de Palafrugell, I have to locate myself on Google maps just to see the name of the town. I see rectangles, circles, and squares of aqua dotted all over the hillside, some bigger than others—some huge. Another story of Spaniards immigrating to the Americas—Cuba—making their fortune and returning home. This village is whitewashed—no Indio-style homes here—everything stacked like sugar cubes, tumbling to the sea.

Michael asks me what I want to do.

“I just want to sit and be and absorb my surroundings,” I say.

Lunch on the Costa Brava

We settle for lunch on a shaded terrace. Both ordering order Jamón ibérico—me with melon, Michael with tomato bread.

“Jamon—finished.  Melon—finished,” our waiter tells us.

Michael settles for just tomato bread; I order a temeprated goat cheese salad.  We both order fish—mine grilled, Michael’s baked. We order a bottle of Rosato—Catalan for Rosado, which is Spanish for rosé, which is French for…  

I order a bottle because Michael asks if I am going to; I was planning on a glass of cava—maybe two. Michael wanted sangria. With adjustments and extra orders, we finally have everything we want. I am guessing that at least a half bottle of Rosato will be left on the table.  I do want to leave standing, and then there is that low wall.

The temperated (warmed) goat cheese is a stroke of serendipity—a large round of warm creamy goodness set on a thin crispy round of toasted bread in the middle of every green imaginable with tiny cubes of tomato and paper-thin slices of apple, all of it studded with raisins and pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, lightly dressed with balsamic and olive oil. Delicious, delicious, delicious.  I don’t need my fish, but an hour later, they place it before me anyway. Michael opts for ice cream at the tiny shop up the hill, while I ask for candied figs with Chantilly cream.  I feel like I won—the figs are unctuous, the Chantilly cream light as a feather, and all of it drizzled with burnt sugar. Yum.

I would sit here for another hour, but we don’t have that long, and lunch took over two, so we wander— up the hill to the ice cream shop.