Day 12 - Girona City and Costa Brava

We started our morning by travelling to the old city of Girona. It was a fascinating old city with cobblestone streets, steep inclines and beautiful views.  Many scenes from Season 6 of the Games of Thrones were filmed in these narrow "Old Europe" streets.  This has increased tourism, much to the pleasure of the local merchants.  However, many of the residents are not pleased and openly protest against it.

After walking through the city we went to lunch at a restaurant named Draps.  As usual it was a seven course meal with wine and 2 desserts.  While difficult to say (because all meals have been great), this may have been the best lunch of the trip.

On our way back to the bus we encountered a woman playing steel drums unlike any we had ever seen.  Unlike Caribbean steel drums where the musician strikes the inside of the drums with a mallet, her drums were shaped like two mushroom caps put together and she played them with her hands. The sound was beautiful.

Our last stop of the day was Palamos, a fishing village on the Mediterranean about an hour north of Barcelona.  This is the town where Truman Capote stayed when he wrote "In Cold Blood".  We walked down to the harbor to see the brightly colored fishing boats as they came in for the day with their fresh catch.

As we were walking by one boat a fishermen was eating raw shrimp (shell and all) and he threw Myra, Donna and Shirley a shrimp - which they ate.  It tasted sweet - the first raw shrimp any of them had eaten.  Unlike our Georgia shrimp which are pale in color, these were bright red.

Later we went to the fish market to observe the process of selling the fresh catch of the day. Restaurants and vendors got the first opportunity to purchase what was caught.  The fishermen graded and placed the products in bins that were placed on a conveyor belt.   As each bin came to a certain spot on the conveyor belt they were bid on electronically by the restaurant/vendors with handheld devices.

 The fish not sold at the auction were taken to the local fish market next door for sale to the public.

The night ended with an award winning chef-prepared meal that consisted of octopus salad, barracuda stew, Fideo #2 pasta and a dessert.  We all took a try at drinking wine from the wineskin!

At the dinner, which was the last of the tour, we were told we were going to play a game. The game was taking a used bottle cork (of course) and seeing if we could hold it between our thumb and forefinger lengthwise, bounce it on the table and have it stand on end. The person who could do it in the least amount of bounces "won".  I think we all realized, although they did not say it, that this was the "Raffle". We were competing for the bowl.

Each of us was given 10 attempts. Myra did it on the second bounce and we won this beautiful bowl that was cut from the cork tree on our actual anniversary!

What a wonderful anniversary gift!  Now we just need to get it home safely!