Montseny, Top of the world, Cataluna, Spain
Fri 21 Jun 2013
In the hills behind the Spanish coastline north of Barcelona is a wonderful array of country villages. On the sunny day that I visited was a date approached the end of the school year.
From the base of Canet de Mar, we headed inland under the two North South freeways connecting Barcelona to Girona and to the small village of xxx.
In this place, we joined of a group of parents in a park adjacent to the school. While the economy of Spain continues at a snail pace, and unemployment rates high, the simple pleasures of life remain.
The children play in the park, while I engage some poor Spanish with the locals. The parents are mostly unemployed and likely single. Yyy father of two is a laid back guy and lead singer in a band, tattooed zzz, is a mother of one and also a musician. aaa is quite excited, as she was moving from a part time job to a full time job as a graphic designer for a company with offices in Barcelona. As the ownership was Turkish, she was keen to practise some english as this is the lingo she would use to speak to management.
The wonderful happy afternoon banter over a couple of beers and coffees in the open space included moving about to get into or out of the sun. Such simple pleasures and a non-tourist opportunity with "Soy Australiano". An Australian in this small town is somewhat a novelty, it seems.
Onward with the tour, my host soon enough had me a top Montseny, the nearby peak with a view of the world it would seem. From the position featured in the photo, you could see the open plains with crops and farms and village. In the distance the mountain peak behind Barcelona and mountain range that now hindered Barcelona's expansion.
Beyond all this, the Mediterranean, majestically blue on this occasion.
This place is simply reached if you have a hire car, which might be as low as EU22 per day.... and better still get lost on the way and find a different and special panorama.
The other recommended purchase is a local prepaid SIM for your smart phone so you have GPS mapping coverage. For EU 20, you get some call credit, 1000 text sms and a reasonable 1GB of data. The sales person who helped me had enough English.... and I left the store with the phone operating. Be sure to have your passport with you when purchasing.
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360 Panorama Wikipedia page| Story by: John Nayler Profile John Nayler has been a flat-out-traveller for almost 20 years. 37 countries, but who's counting - he is likely to have been there, done that AND probably recorded something about it. You want entertaining answers? You have come to the right place. |
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