Monday, September 1, 2008

Tossa de Mar

The last week of ISU became the week of day trips for me, and it started on Monday with a trip to Tossa de Mar.Sonny and Paul had been completing a diving course in Tossa over the weekend and needed to return for one more day of lessons and testing. Since there were only two of them in the car, they had three empty spaces. We found out at dinner that Jaisha was planning on going, and Pol and I said we'd love to go too.

On Monday morning, it turned out that Jaisha couldn't make it, but Sonny, Paul, Pol, and I headed out around 10am.

Tossa is about an hour and a half north of Barcelona - it's a small town on the ocean on Costa Brava. Costa Brava is really different from the beaches south of Barcelona. Instead of being sandy and staying shallow for a long time, everything is very rocky and it gets deep very quickly.When we got there, Paul and Sonny went off to the diving center, and Pol and I went for a nap on the beach. It was a little bit cloudy, which was perfect, because direct sun in the Spanish summer is really intense. The nap was followed by a swim - I couldn't believe how clear the water was, even when we were very deep.
After swimming, we decided to rent a kayak. We were a bit lazy with kayaking, and just explored around one ridge. Whenever the sun would come out, we'd set our paddles down and just lay in the kayak, floating in the Mediterranean, until the sun went behind the clouds again. It was very relaxing, though, and we saw some very pretty views.

After lunch at a cute pizzeria, we headed off to the castle for some hiking. We walked up to the top where the faro (lighthouse) was, and took our time wandering around and seeing the views from the various lookouts.When we made our way back to the bottom, we got some icecream, and then sat on a rock overlooking the water as we waited for Sonny and Paul to return from their last dive.It was such a beautiful day, and so relaxing and fun, I think this trip was one of my favorites of the entire summer.

No comments: