The Costa Brava

Callel de Palafrugell

At a little after 2 pm—1400 by the world and Spanish clock—we exit the bus in the middle of the street. This is strange. Finally, on the Costa Brava, it is all about the water. The views. The lunch. We climb and descend. 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.

We are in Callel de Palafrugell. I have to locate myself on Google maps just so I can 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. Pools. 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.

Lunch by the Sea on the Costa Brava

Michael asks me what I want to do.

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

We settle for lunch on a shaded terrace. We both 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, which must be Catalan for rosado, which is Spanish for rosé, which is French for… I order a bottle because Michael asks if I am going to; my plan was to order 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 remain 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.