Spirosbikespain: Mindful riding!

Another great sleep, this was a very quiet town at night. It's been great traveling in the off-season. Although not all the restaurants are open, enough are, there never is a problem getting in to a restaurant. Same for hotels, we can just show up and get a room, often at low season rates.

A few more details on Peratallada for the readers who appreciate history. The name is derived from pedra tallada, which means carved stone. The Peratallada castle was built on the site of a former fortress and is documented from the year 1065. There are a variety of construction techniques on the castle from different periods and styles. There is a 30 foot high rectangular tower, the Keep, in the center of the structure. The clock tower is also on a square floor plan. There's a 30 foot high round tower at one of the entrances. There are loop holes for firearms on all these structures. The moat is about 20 feet deep. You can still see the zigzag marks in the moat wall from the stonecutters picks. That's some serious work. Most of the houses in the town were built from stone carved from the moat. There's a 13th century Romanesque church outside the walls, dedicated to Sant Esteve. Can't have too many churches! Also during restoration they found traces of settlements from the bronze age. Anyway a fascinating town. Crazy how they meld current houses right into the medieval structures.

Ok, back to the bikes. We had just a few miles to go today to get to the coast so we resumed our wandering. As we wandered April got more and more passionate about her concept of using the bikes as transportation to see things, rather than just pounding out the miles. Suddenly she blurts out "See, we're riding mindfully!" A short lecture ensues and I get an earful about how we're seeing things, smelling the flowers, taking pictures of flowers, exploring villages, reading plaques, and the fast road riders don't see any of this, on and on. Just then we come upon a guy out on a dirt road who's painting a picture of the fields and a village in the distance. Christ, just what we need to reinforce her thinking. April is so excited, she stops and takes his picture.

Then comes her second great quote of the day, "Mountains are for hiking!" As opposed to biking. Seems to be a philosophical day.

We get back on a paved road and have a choice, a road about 3K to the town of Pals, or a loop around south down to Torrent and then back up to Pals, maybe 10K. We decide to head south on the longer loop. We come into Torrent and I point out a museum of confiture (jam), and it was open. My God you'd think the woman won the $360 million lottery we just had in the States. "Ooh I wanted to come through here before but it was closed. And I forgot about it. Its run by these two women. See, see, this is what happens when you ride mindfully!"

The museum is in fact amazing. It's actually a store and a museum. They have a tremendous array of homemade preserves, marmalades and jellies. There about 250 different varieties listed in their brochure. Check out some of these selections:

Black turnip and honey, carrot apricot and coriander, wisteria jelly, white beans with pomegranate, quince and grapefruit, pumpkin and peach, figs honey and laurel, rhubarb and rosemary, tomato and pistachios, chocolate and watermelon. The list goes on and on. They've even created a Periodic Table of jams, grouping together the jams with similar qualities.

We asked if they shipped to the USA, but she said it would be too expensive. Sigh. So April bought three small jars of jam, put them in her front pannier and away we went; presumably locked into "mindful cycling" forever.

We got on the road again to Begur. There was a 3K uphill on a busy road into Begur. We booked it up the road spurred on by the traffic. We had a simple and quick lunch in Begur. It started to rain a little bit while we were having lunch. So it was cool and slightly rainy as we headed down the huge hill to the coast. Remember I was "allowed" to book this little inn down on the coast in a tiny cove. As we head down this really steep long road, there are all sorts of turnoffs. I thought the inn was in Sa Tuna, but there was a sign for the inn that pointed us to Aiguafreda, the cove further north from SaTuna. Down we went, cold rainy and not sure where we were going. I was told in no uncertain terms, "I'm not climbing back up this hill, if it's not down here!" Pressure mounted!!

Finally at the bottom, there was the inn, Sa Rascassa, on the right. It didn't look like much, couldn't see the sea, seemed like it was just in a parking lot. I got the dreaded "look". We walked in, and Oscar, the owner greeted us. He spoke excellent English. The restaurant looked really nice. He showed us towards our room upstairs, and we could see down to the small cove from the upstairs deck. The room, and indeed the whole inn, was built with a serene, minimalist type of design. The design was modern, warm, clean and simple. Very nice. We were the only guests.

I tried to nap, but instead we took a short walk along the cliffs above the sea. Then we chilled before dinner which started at 8:30. We were the only guests in the inn, and the only guests in the restaurant at that time so we got to talk with Oscar quite a bit. He used to be an exec in the marketing business, worked in London for some time. Chucked it all about 10 years ago to do this inn and restaurant. He's gotten some really great reviews in the Brit press, like top 25 inns in the world, best meals in Spain, etc, etc. As we read thru all the literature and reviews he had collected, my star got brighter and brighter. I know how to pick 'em!

Dinner was excellent. Aligning with the theme, it was simple yet delicious. The chef let the fresh food sparkle, rather than having elaborate sauces and stuff. April had an apple salad that she declared was the best salad of the trip. I started with some chicken croquettes, which are ubiquitous here so I figured I'd try some and see if they were any good. They were good, but not as good as my father's. Then April had a pasta stuffed with gorgonzola and pear, topped with a light walnut sauce. I had a grilled monkfish. All delicious. Big score. We liked the clean simple meals. Even the bread and olive oil was a cut above the normal fare; the olive oil was from his friend's trees just outside of town. We had a wonderful, local white blend for our wine. And our best coulant (choc molten cake) with homemade vanilla ice cream of the trip. Man we nailed it!

Hit the sack happy and stuffed. Good thing I'm in charge of both the inns and restaurants now. April's in charge of riding mindfully.

P.S. Research provided by April Spiro, MLS

April riding mindfully towards Pals.