Friday, January 05, 2007

Palamós Costa Brava New years eve 2006

My friend Jordi's parents own a house in Palamos. Palamos is in Costa Brava in the Catalan mediterranean sea right on the way upnorth to France. It takes normally around an hour from Barcelona to get there.

Me and my friends Enri, Mario, Guillermo, Willy etc, we like to gather in Palamos from time to time on the odd weekend, but mostly during the summer season and also traditionally for New Years eve


Palamos isn't such a great place in Costa Brava compared to others like, let's say Begur, Pals, Cadaqués or other pintoresque small villages in the area, but being in the core of Costa Brava allows you to go around and see wild beautiful 'Calas' [Catalan name for small beach], like 'Cala estreta', 'La Fosca' or 'Cala Castell'.

This last one was recently on danger due to the project on the construction of lots of summer vilas right where there is a big forest now, but thanks to a strong local campaign 'Salvem Castells' seems things have settled back to normal.



I personally prefer to go to Palamos during winter time, for the obvious lack of annoying tourism, which makes the place, and most importantly the beach, the perfect place to be.

We also like to go to swim early in the morning the 1st of January, no matter if you had sleep or not the night before, althought this year everybody was too hammered to do it, so when my friends were in bed around 8 AM I headed myself to the beach for a long walk on my own.



It was a perfect blue skies morning and the temperature was fantastic.


This fuckers shit on you

It felt great.
It was undoubtly the best way to start a new year.


Jordi in La Fosca


Also Palamós and the area [Empordà] is well known because the strong winds called 'Tramontana', sort of Gales which can last for minutes or maybe hours.

We had a bit of tramontana the night of the 31 st.


Willy dancing some SKA with the Tramontana, not recommended after few pints!
We also like to go to Cala La Fosca to jump from the rocks to the sea.

Cala Castell

La Fosca near Palamos.



There are different levels, some rocks are at 20 feet high, others from almost 50 feet high [15 meters] and there are even higher ones.



Jordi has jumped from one of these. See the white shirt fella on top right of the pic above? [!]
He used to swim on competitions in a Catalan Team on his teen days.
Couple of spliffs and then ...some thrills


Jordi in La Fosca. Mad!


Palamos has the old quarter with plenty of narrow streets.
We had a few drinks before sunset.


The local church was decorated with some xmas lights.

You can also buy fresh fish from the local market, but you have to wake up very early to get the best stuff.



Needless to say Palamos has got a brilliant source of restaurants as fresh fish is supplied by the fisherman on daily basis.


There is also a sort of lighthouse on the rocks pier. We headed there for a walk on new years eve.

Enri

We enjoyed a top sunset.


Pure mediterranean style.



It was the perfect way to say goodbye to 2006.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very nice Pics..my friend Pedro. Nice end and a good start. Love from Sanna