With the laptop playing up and incredibly full days, my tea and travel travails have fallen a little behind. So, I intend a very short wrap of a very long day. Let’s see how that goes:
We gave up on making our own tea. Knowing we had a full day trip ahead, we just headed to our usual spot for a 7.30 start; where I had a surprising English Breakfast and Lady Devotea had a surprising Mango tea.
The surprises were , in both cases, because they got our teas around the wrong way, and once the mango had become “con leche” and significantly “con azucar” then the status quo er, became the status quo.
A nice little panet – a tiny bread roll with cured ham and mild cheese- devoured and we were on our way.
The quick fact about Girona: it is amazing. In the midst of a seemingly drty and outdated (i.e. 50-100 years old) industrial estate is a magnificent medieval village that looks like this.
And has a cathedral that looks like this. And so, you can imagine we had a wonderful time, wandering this space. There were plenty of stories, too: mostly of violence. Visigoth on Roman, Catholic on Jew, Moors on Catholics etc.But things have changed, right? Well, here’s the signs from the mens’ and ladies’ toilets in the cafe next door.
But never mind the rampant sexism, I hear you ask, how was the tea? Well, here’s three pictures:
I can hear you screaming questions at me now: “Is that a poster offering a stack of loose leaf teas?” “Is that a nice Ceylon OP that is in Lady D’s tea contraption?” “And by all that’s holy, is that a Pai Mu Tan you have yourself there?”
Yes to all of those!
What go go wrong after that? Nothing? It just kept getting better.
There was Pals, a wonderful medieval village that I only took one photo in, of the watch tower, it was both mesmerising and physically demanding.
There was an exceptional lunch on the water front at Calella De Palafrugell, with the Mediterranean at our feet.
And there was a rare early night – we skipped dinner, watched the sun go down from our balcony (over bad coffee from one of these appalling Nespresso bars that are popping up) and saw the palace/museum on the hill light up in all it’s spendour.
We were probably asleep by the time the majority of locals sat down to dinner by 10am.
Lots to do, not much time left here in Barcelona. Including some recommended tea shops.
I am so enjoying the posts of your journey. The tea establishment featured seems to have their bases covered. I especially like the bathroom note under the poster of tea selections 🙂
Announcement to all travel guides: you can go home, @thedevotea has it all covered. And the best is that he speaks also of tea-related things.
I. Want. That. Strainer!