Made it to Spain

August 15, 2024: We are finally here – things definitely did not go as planned, but we made it.

Yesterday, the day of our flight, started with bad news from my sister that they need to cancel their trip to Spain and they will not be joining us at the family reunion. Not a good start.

Then, an hour before the taxi was scheduled to come to take us to the airport, I took a quick shower and suddenly the water stopped draining and flooded our bathroom. Then water from the toilet backed up into the shower. After cleaning the mess, I came out smelling worse than when I went in. Fixing the plumbing is something we will have to deal with when we return. Definitely not part of today’s plan.

Due to the war, many airlines are not flying to Israel now. In spite of this, the airport was very crowded but at least there, all went smoothly. We arrived late at night in Barcelona and discovered that things get done here, but very slowly. The luggage only started to come out for our flight after an hour. The check-in at the airport hotel took forever. Picking up the rental car this morning took a very long time. Everything happens, but at a much slower pace than what we are used to.

Once we got our rental car, we then returned to the hotel to pick up our luggage (we were, as usual, not traveling lightly – 5 large and heavy suitcases, 2 carry-ons, a back pack and a big “Mary Poppins” handbag). It was already lunch time and we had not yet eaten anything today. Not far from the airport, in the El Prat neighborhood of Barcelona is a vegan restaurant (thank-you Happy Cow app for letting us know). The area seemed to be under urban renewal, lots of construction of new apartment buildings going on. The vegan restaurant, Viva, was nice and we enjoyed our slow lunch there.

The plan for today was originally to visit the Jewish sites in Girona and then do a major shopping for supplies for ourselves and also for the family reunion. Now, after lunch, it was already late in the day, and we decided to skip Girona and instead head straight to our Airbnb in Besalu, a small town with a Jewish past, north of Girona. We would do the shopping in Banyola, a large town that we would pass along the way.

Once we left Barcelona behind, the scenery changed to be how I remember Spain – agricultural fields with many scattered villages (always with an old, prominent large church surrounded by many houses with red-tiled roofs) and mountains looming in the distance. What was unusual, was the large electronic road signs – they warned of highway robbers and encouraged you to be wary of strangers.

After almost two hours of driving, we arrived in Banyola. When we reached the shopping area, none of the stores were open. I had not taken into account that today, August 15, is a national holiday – the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. This is a very important day in the Catholic religion celebrating two events – the birth of the Virgin Mary and the day she was assumed or taken up into heaven by God. Due to the holiday, everything was closed. Even the SPAR grocery store that Google said would be open today, was closed. Should have planned better.

We continued onward to Besalú and arrived there mid-afternoon. Mark and I traveled throughout Spain in 2007 (17 years ago!) and had visited Besalú then. I remembered it as a very quiet, charming medieval town. The moment we approached the place, I felt it had changed. Now, outside the city, the fields were full of hundreds of parked cars of tourists who had come to visit. The bridge leading into the town was full of people. Maybe the difference is that we had previously come in November, off-season, and now was the height of the summer high-season, but it felt more than that. The streets were now lined with many tourist shops. In spite of the crowds, the town still held its charm, just not its calm and quiet.

Luckily, the SPAR grocery store on the outskirts of Besalú was open, and we were able to get supplies for our Shabbat cooking. I had requested early check-in but they had not yet finished cleaning the apartment. To kill the time, we drove to have a quick peek at Castellfollit de la Roca – a village on the edge of a cliff, that was only a short drive down the road. The setting was more spectacular than I had imagined.

We then returned to the AirBnb in Besalú, where we would spend the next four nights until the family reunion. Once there, we discovered that the apartment is on the third floor – no elevator. This was not mentioned anywhere in the AirBnb listing. I wrote to the owner telling her of my disappointment, and the answer was it was called Apartment 3, because it was on the third floor. I was supposed to have figured that out. I did not – would you have?

We slowly lugged everything up the stairs, and despite not everything going exactly as planned, we are very happy to be here and are hoping for a smoother day tomorrow.