So Here's Our Vacation Blog...

Sad to leave Cadaques, and I won’t bore you with another sunrise photo.  Let’s just say it was spectacular and red.  Had an easy time driving the mountainous switchbacks without the fog, but the speed limit of 90 kph is a joke - best I could do was 50 before slowing to 20 around those tight corners, while watching out for the tour busses coming the other way crossing over the line.  Whew!  Stopped in a small town named Llafranc for lunch.  Llafranc’s beach is rated one of the top 10 in Spain, and it’s easy to see why.

Not very large, it’s surrounded by large homes, hotels, and restaurants.  No gift shops, no T shirt shops, nothing.  People come here to lay in the sun and be pampered - looked like they could well-afford it, too.  There were a large number of Llauts on the beach, and how they got there was very interesting.  These boats have an additional keel on each side so there are three of them side-by-side, all at the same level on the bottom.  They stay straight up when grounded.  I saw them roll logs to pull them up in other places, but here they had a sort of boardwalk for the boats, and they could roll them from their parking place to the main wooden pathway and down to the water - I’d love to see that one day, pretty ingenious.

We made it to Barcelona in the early afternoon, checked into our hotel - the Sant Agusti, just a hundred yards off Las Ramblas, the main pedestrian walkway through the middle of town.  The hotel in on the Placa Sant Agusti, and we were lucky enough to get underground parking a hundred yards away for $59 total for four nights - try doing that in Chicago!  The church that the plaza is named for is right across the plaza, easy to see from our fourth story balcony.  The church was built between 1350 and 1700, abandoned, rebuilt, demolished, rebuilt, and along the way the left side and upper part of the front were never completed.  Imagine, hundreds of years going by and nobody ever thought to finish it.  Now that it’s a landmark it’ll never be done!

Went out immediately for a beer, since Marge was feeling a little parched...

So today is the last day of La Merce, Barcelona’s annual festival.  There are fireworks booming outside our window right now, but a few hours ago before the sun went down we were able to see the ‘Cavalcada de La Merce,’ a huge parade right down Las Ramblas - about two hours and two miles long.  We’d seen a small bit of it before and were excited it would be going on while we’re here, mainly to see the Gigantes!  They’re like parade floats, but usually with a patriotic or religious theme.  Built on a tapered wooden structure, like a large bar stool, they’re covered in clothes with a giant head on top, so like a huge person - maybe 20’ tall.  One person climbs underneath and lifts it, walking down the street between groups playing traditional music on old-fashioned instruments.  The Gigantes twirl around like they’re dancing, especially if two of them are walking together.  I don’t know how they can do it.  Here are some photos of the more traditional ones...

And here are some that we’d not seen before.  Wish I knew what they were supposed to be, but the crowd loved them, cheering wildly as they passed.

Even little children were playing a part, preparing for the day when they’d be able to carry a full-sized one.

So the fireworks just stopped and I’m beat.  Marge is asleep and we’ve got a long day of shopping tomorrow, with maybe a twist or two thrown in.  I’ll let you know tomorrow how it turns out.