Spain

We’ve been in Spain for just a few days, but it seems like so much longer! The flight from Glasgow to Barcelona with Easyjet, was … easy! On time, straight forward. We took a train from the airport to Blanes, which is where we’re staying. That was only a little-lot bit painful. Just slow, and the graffiti on the windows made sure we couldn’t see the lovely coast on the very slow ride up.

But now we’ve settled down in an Air Bnb (which is… well, we’re making the best of it) and it’s all good. Weather is wonderful, almost too hot, but we cannot complain! Blanes is a lovely town, and we’ve been getting up early to beat the heat and are doing some walks. Evidenced here in the photos.

We are still in Blanes, Spain. There is a serious heatwave going on here, which has meant that we have stayed put. We would like to go to Girona, but it’s even hotter there, so we will go to Barcelona and stay there for a couple of days before flying on to Sweden on Saturday.

The beach here is gorgeous, the weekend has just passed and wow, was it busy! Sun umbrellas filled the beach, as the sun seekers baked on the sand. Interesting to see, but, too hot and crowded for us. The esplanade and restaurants were packed, it was all very enjoyable to take in. We’re assuming this is mostly Spanish domestic tourism; there’s not a lot of English spoken in the restaurants or shops. The folks here, regardless of whether they live here, have a huge tolerance for the sun and heat! We’ve been staying out of the direct sun, and have only gone to the beach a couple of times, and that was after 4:00 in the afternoon!

As we have stayed put, our routine is to get up and walking by 8:00 am, before it gets too warm. We head along some steeper walking routes, enjoying the beautiful views of the Costa Brava coast. Taking in a coffee and croissant on the way back, which is no hardship at all! We have seen some of the botanic and cacti gardens here.

One of the coolest things I have seen was a festival that happened yesterday! Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Blane’s Fireworks Festival, (which occurs in July); they have these beautiful mural tapestries made out of flower petals, sand, coloured wood shavings etc.. Created in the morning, and destroyed by the evening.

We are coming to the end of our stay in Spain. Yesterday, we took a train from Blanes to Barcelona, and have spent the time doing typically touristy things. We’re staying at Casual Colours Barcelona, which is working perfectly for us. We walked from our hotel to Plaza Catalunya, which was just a bit too much, too hot, so we have been using the metro trains to get to these places. We took a guided Air BnB experience, which was really quite good. Even with using the metro, we still walked 16kms yesterday.

This morning today we went to Parc Guell, which is a very beautiful space. Then we walked over to Sagrada Familia to just walk around and take it in. At both places, we were there with about a million other people. Too many instagram posers, taking those selfies…

Above is a little video of the Costa Brava area, just east of Blanes. Some of the views from our daily walks.

Below are some images from Parc Guell and Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.