Trip to Hostalric

On Tuesday we went on an excursion to Hostalric. There was a 20 minute wait for a bus so we decided to take a taxi to the station in order not to miss the train. The train took about an hour to get to Hostalric. After we arrived we went to the small weekly market and bought some mandarins. Then we climbed up to the castle which has sadly been converted into a restaurant and is not open to the public. The restaurant was not open either so we had to go down to the village to find somewhere to get something to eat. We settled on a simple bar with a nice view and sat outside in the square. Bo and Thomas had platos combinados and I had an enormous fuet "bocadillo" which I couldn't finish so we kept it for later.

After lunch I played pool with Thomas and we went for a walk by the allotments and chatted to a man picking fruit. He said none of his children wanted to work on the allotments and preferred to work in the city, Girona I suppose. The man was whistling happily as he worked and was extremely friendly. We did see one young man doing some work on an allotment so there is some hope for the future. We then walked through the woods to the river, the Tordera, but it began to spit with rain so we sheltered under the trees. When it eased off we climbed back up to the village and saw the rest of the village and the town hall. We made our way to the square where the patisserie was, where we had bought some delicious local specialities and waited for the giants to come. At 5-30 they arrived with all the local inhabitants in tow. Thomas shook hands with a capgros (big head) and then the castanyada started. There were free chestnuts and sweet potatoes for everybody. We were the only foreign visitors there and it made me think that people only visit the main destinations nowadays and do not explore like they used to. There did not appear to be anywhere to stay in Hostalric which may be one reason, but I suspect most people just don't do their research properly anymore.

We had time to kill as the train didn't leave until 8-20. We went down to the station where the bar was open. I played table football with Thomas which was a first and then gave him an informal English lesson by pointing out things on the station and asking him questions. I then got chatting to a man about the night-time withdrawal of emergency health cover at the health centre in the village which was worrying. He went on a bit and we nearly missed our train which departed 5 minutes early for some reason. By the time we got to Barcelona it was about 25 minutes early so so much for the timetable. We were lucky with the bus and got home at a reasonable time.

We had had a thoroughly enjoyable and educational day out which contrasted strongly with our visit to the cinema the previous day which was not so successful. I felt it was good for Thomas to get out of Barcelona and see how people live in the countryside. Maybe in the future he may decide to live there. Who knows?