A boat trip to Tossa De Mar
This morning the nice chipolatas had been replaced with mini hot dog sausages, these weren't great though so I popped some tuna and a small pastry on the plate too to make up for the disappointment.
I thought the pastry would have a savoury filling but it turned out to be filled with cream, not the best combination with beans!
My wife choose a fairly healthy option.
I tried to be healthy too with a slice of kiwi fruit, a pair of chocolate pastries jumped on the plate too though. The pastries looked better than they tasted, very dry indeed and possibly intended to be dipped into coffee.
We headed to the beach to buy tickets for the 9.15 boat trip to Tossa De Mar, the return trip cost €30 and stopped at a number of resorts on the way.
You simply boarded the boat from the beach, it dropped its ladder and on you got.
We didn't particularly want to sit on the top deck in the direct sun, luckily there were seats downstairs too.
The leaflet promised stunning views of the Costa Brava seabed through the glass bottomed boat, we weren't convinced though!
We tried to sit upstairs in a shady area on the upstairs deck towards the front but this pair of rucksacks refused to move, its owners insisted they needed a seat, very irritating indeed!
We headed to the lower deck in search of refreshments.
We bought some Coke and Oreos and continued looking for a window seat.
It seemed that more of these poor bags were in dire need of a sit down. We moved this one only to discover another passenger sitting on the opposite side of the boat storm over to tell us it was her bags seat. As far as I'm concerned on these kind of boat trips you take a seat and if you leave it to sit somewhere else its then available for someone else to sit on.
The boat stopped of at small secluded beaches like this one in Santa Cristina. Had we had more time we may well have jumped off here, Tossa De Mar was calling us though.
Lloret De Mar didn't look quite so appealing though with its British Pub serving roast dinners nestled between Subway and Burger King.
In this area the boat stopped and the crew started throwing bread into the water.
I couldn't capture it very well at all but the sight of the fish swimming around the edge of the boat was far better than the view through the glass bottomed hull.
The boat trip ended at the stunning resort of Tossa De Mar, we had four hours here before we boarded the boat back to Calella again.
The winding back streets of Tossa De Mar were crammed with shops and restaurants providing some much needed shade.
These meringues looked impressive but on such a hot day we didn't really fancy trying one.
This chap had the right idea!
My wife had been told about this liquor, we managed to track a bottle down.
We wanted some tapas at some point on the trip, for now we just fancied a drink though.
This fruit looked amazing, we were really craving fruit and drink.
Our prayers were answered with a jug of sangria, drink and fruit combined for just €9.
The sangria made us feel a tad sleepy so we remedied it with an espresso, it did the trick nicely. Time to explore the oldest part of the town.
The "Vila Vella Enceinte" is the only example of a fortified medieval town still standing on the Catalan coast.
Deep inside it you are can get lost amongst the network of streets and buildings at varying heights, its a stunning sight.
Behind it is a beautiful cove area, we climbed to the top of a hill where you get an excellent view across Tossa De Mar.
This street was lined with restaurants all serving "menu del dia" at a fixed price. These varied between €10 - €30 per person and generally included a starter, main course, dessert, drink and some bread. We spent ages deciding but finally was won over by the place serving Crema Catalana for dessert.
With desserts chosen it was just a case of choosing the starter and main course.
The view was amazing but we struggled to get this table which was apparently reserved. As soon as we said we would go somewhere else though the waiter whipped the reserved sign away and told us we could have the table for as long as we wanted.
Sangria was included in the price of this €17 menu del dia, we expected a glass each but a whole jug arrived at the table, nice! The bread rolls were nothing to write home about but kept us going until our starters arrived.
My wife chose a simple mozzarella and tomato salad with pesto dressing.
I took myself right back to the 1970's with a classic prawn cocktail.
We both chose paella for our main course, I was delighted with my seafood version. The discovery of pork and chicken pieces was a pleasure to uncover too, gotta love paella!
My wife wasn't so keen on her vegetarian paella, she felt bad about leaving some and decided the waiter may not notice if it was hidden under the cutlery.
The crema catalana here was pretty good but Les Caves in Calella were still the kings of this dish.
The queue for the boat back was certainly longer than it had been on the way, as a result of this the return trip was certainly less fun.
Back at the hotel it was time to start drinking, this stuff was incredibly nice.
Another day another bikini, this time with a fried egg. I loved the way the yolk was peering out through the top.
A really nice mojito followed the bikini before we headed to the festival venue.
This was at 11pm!
Bar La Mancha in the back streets of Calella is a favourite of ours, always a good place to stop for a drink and really cheap too.
Many of the locals drink here till late and they're a friendly bunch.
The man serving behind the bar poured that Absolute vodka for a generous time, the bottles of tonic here are easily twice the size as back in the UK.
To accompany the drink some nuts arrived, really salty and most likely to make us want to drink more, no problem as this was our plan!
Ten minutes up the road and we stopped at another of our favourite bars, the vodka servings here are the most generous we have ever experienced and this is why we keep coming back.
There fast and energetic set ended with a spectacular display of sparks firing out from the end of the double bass. Valle the bass player at this point had positioned himself in amongst the crowd, excellent!
Before the Toy Dolls came on we headed outside to consume more vodka and chat with friends.
I love The Toy Dolls, watching the crowd dancing and singing to Nellie the elephant was easily my highlight of the entire festival.
Our friend Tom is the bass player, it was great to see him here at the festival.
Mad Sin's bass player Valle joined the Toy Dolls for a song during their set. An excellent night and so busy, such great fun though!
The walk home after all that vodka was a bit of a blur, I found this photo on my phone the next day though and wondered how long it took us to walk up here.
We clearly enjoyed some prawn cocktail crisps too, we can't remember eating them though!
That brekko after the previous day?...oh boy what a come down. Great looking paella though, and the mozzarella salad.
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