One crazy day we decided to do a roadtrip through France. I wasn’t satisfied with that, so I added a small part of Spain as well. That way I could practice my Spanish and do a little citytrip in between :-).
We didn’t visit a lot of cities. We only had 32 days to complete the road trip (;-)), so we were limited in time. I think we were only 4 days in Catalonia. We stopped in LLança, Figueres, Girona and Barcelona. And drove by Montserrat –but it was foggy at the time, so we couldn’t see a lot. We tried to get to the monastery, but we didn’t had enough time to pay it a visit. In this blogpost I will only tell you something small about Figueres en Girona, and something big about Barcelona :-).
Figueres
Figueres means “fig trees”. We didn’t stay a long time here. It was close to Llança, where we had our hotel (the Pensió Restaurant LLança, a very cheap hotel – and it looked like it; although cheap hotels in Spain tend to be better than in France; there were ants all over the place as well :-)). After we arrived in Llança we decided to take the car and get to Figueres. The main reason was the museum of Dalí. The city was the birthplace of the painter and also the place where his grave can be found. So we couldn’t go to Catalonia without visiting his museum. I like Salvador Dalí, so I was really curious. The museum has a surrealistic look from the outside, with eggs on top of the walls. Kind of somethings special. And kind of hard to miss as well :-). The building used to be a theatre (hence the name of the museum “Teatre-Museu de Dalí”).
Although we were already late, the museum was filled with people. I had no idea that Dalí was so popular! But it is stated as the second most visited museum of Spain, next to the Prado in Madrid. Each room in the museum is an artwork on its own, filled with paintings, furniture, statues and other objects. If you’re a fan, it’s a nice place to visit 🙂
You can find Dalí’s tomb close to the museum as well.
Girona
Girona is known for its hanging houses over the river Onyar. It’s a very charming city. We only stopped here to do a quick city walk – before going to Barcelona. But I liked it a lot. We were here rather early so it was still quiet. The historical part of the city lies on the steep hills of the Caputxins. Luckily the other parts of the city are on flat terrain ;-).
Our walk passed by different sight. We started at the Pont de Pedra, the bridge from which you can see the hanging houses. After that we went towards de Plaça de la Independència. We also passed by the Baños Arabes (the bath houses) and the Cathedral of Santa Maria de Girona. In Girona you also have a Jewish Quartier “El Call” and a lot of ancient city walls.
Barcelona
We stayed here a day and a half. That was fine by me – I don’t like Barcelona very much. There are a lot of other cities in Spain that are way more charming and authentic. But what I do like about Barcelona is the influence of Gaudi.
It was more like a small citytrip when we were in Barcelona, so I’m going to right another blogpost for this one here ;-).
See you!
Around the world in a lifetime 