Barcelona, Day Two, The Country

For whatever reason we booked a tour to take us out into the country.  We booked it from the ship with a company called Viator - which we now know is owned by TripAdvisor.

It went well - a guy in a van picked us up at 8:30 AM like they said they would. There was already two couples in the van - one from Australia and the other from Lebanon.  We then picked up another couple at a different hotel who were from Hong Kong - so we had quite a mix but we got along very well.

This is the group.

And it's funny how people from different parts of the world look different. The two on the left are from Hong Kong - they look like just they should be from Hong Kong. Then the two next to me in the blue shirt and the white shirt are the two Aussies - they bloody look like Aussies don't they? And then the two on the right - they're from Lebanon and they look just like you'd expect people from Lebanon to look like.  It's freakin' remarkable!

First stop was Girona.

Girona is an ancient fortified city. It's main claim to fame is the excellent state of the ancient buildings. It's secondary claim to fame is the many Game of Thrones locations here.

Just inside the old city is this cat on a pole statue. Legend has it if you kiss the cat's ass, as the guy from Lebanon is doing, you will come back someday to Gerona.

A shot of the town from one of the watchtowers.

The ancient wall between two guard towers.

Terri in the guardhouse.

The rear of the main cathedral.

And the front. This is one of the locations that was used in The Game Of Thrones.

Here's a 2 minute link to a Youtube vid

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ZBIwS7xjhw

Next we went to Pals where we cycled to from Palamos two days earlier.

Last time we were here we didn't have time to climb the tower.

The tower.

This time we do and the following shots are from the top.

Here's a short video of the surrounding countryside taken from the top of the tower.

There are three hills in the distance...look at the top of the middle one.

This is what's on the top of the hill.  An ancient castle!

Max zoom...these new cameras are amazing!

The Pals Cathedral.

The Black Madonna.

The Catalonian flag flying in the main square in Pals. Note the star in the blue triangle on the left side.

Now what's interesting is that this is the real Catalonian flag. Pretty much the same minus the star.

This is the Cuban flag. With a star on the left side same as the modified Catalonian flag.

Our guide told us that Cuba is the most recent country to achieve independence from Spain - just as the people of Catalonia are trying to do - and that's why the flag has been modified.

Enough of Pals...off we go to Calella de Palafrugell for lunch.

A great beach town.

And this is our group. Thu guy with the hat on backwards is the Lebanese guy. I guess they like to look goofy there too.