First trip of the year

As usual, our Christmas present to each other was a trip to Hostel Empuries at L'Escala on the Costa Brava. This year, we added a visit to a restaurant which had been recommended to us by friends Sarah and Paul. The hotel had emailed about a special price offer just after Christmas and so we took advantage of it ..... I haven't seen rooms sell out so fast before!

We set off on Thursday in sunshine and all went well until we reached the first major motorway toll on our route. The queue was a kilometre long as only a couple of gates were open and when we reached the booths, we realised that this was a security check following the Paris shootings.  As we passed through the first toll on the Spanish side, the same procedure was being followed.

The largest mountain at our end of the Pyrenees is the Canigou.  This is it from the French side taken as we were driving along:

We reached the hotel, parked the car and then walked into the town for a tapas lunch. 

Our hotel, Hostal Empuries 

The sun was shining and it was about 14 degrees.  

The pathway from the hotel to the town

This is the Canigou from the Spanish side:

In the evening we went back into the town for dinner at El Rosser 2. Last November, when we came to the region with Sile and Martin to eat at Bo.Tic, we continued to L'Escala and ate a good lunch at El Rosser 1. The restaurants are owned by two brothers and have quite different markets.  At lunch time, ER1 caters for good, lunchtime fare with fast changeover of tables and sometimes a queue, while ER2 caters for the fine dining end of the market - on a Thursday in January, we were the only customers, but we were not disappointed. We chose the tasting menu with matching wines:

It was all delicious.

For the rest of our stay, we wandered into the town, did a little shopping and then had a tapas lunch-a really relaxing break. 

Earlier today, on our last morning, we packed up the car and then walked in to l'Escala, as usual. It was about 18 degrees and we could see people swimming in the sea.  

Now we are back at home and preparing for our departure early on Tuesday.