el 13 de julio - Llafranc y Calella

Our friend Heather is here visiting so we took her on a little sight-seeing in the Costa Brava.  First stop, inland to La Bisbal to check out all the pottery shops.  Sadly, many of them have closed due to the economic crisis in the last two years.  Even so, we still managed to be overwhelmed by all the choices, locally made and from elsewhere in Spain.

From there, we drive to the coast, to a village called Llafranc (pictured above).  I had never been there before and was glad we went.  We ate lunch at 2pm at a seaside restaurant, enjoying local specialties such as patatas bravas, calamars a la planxa, croquetas...  (Sorry about the mix of Spanish and Catalan in my spellings!)  Tuna, tortellinis, goat cheese salad, a hamburger and several bottles of mineral water and rosado wine rounded out the meal.  The views were lovely, to say the least.

Austin wanted to show us another picturesque village around the next cove, so we hopped back in the car to drive to Calella (beach above and right, and town below).  There are white houses lining the coast with gorgeous blue-green water. 

The kids went down to splash around and scramble on the rocks while Heather and I did a little window shopping and then joined Austin for coffees at a cafe overlooking the beach.

Of course, the best vacation days end with ice cream, so we got some yummy ones as we headed back to the car and drove back to Estartit for dinner.