April 30 - Palamós, Spain

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 I should make an update to yesterday’s blog post.  Last night we had dinner with the captain who will be taking command of the ship on May 2^nd in Barcelona and the Hotel Manager.  The new captain was very easy to talk to and seemed  very nice.  He’s from Scotland and on loan from Holland America, a sister line, for a few months.  I shouldn’t say it because it dates me, but he hardly looked old enough to be a captain.  He has been at sea for 20 years though.  He told us he began his career on a Chiquita Banana boat, literally taking bananas around the world.

This morning we docked on a beautiful sunny day in Palamós, a city north of Barcelona on the Costa Brava.  We booked a half-day tour which took us to two different sites spanning nearly 3000 years.

Our first stop was Empúries, the ruins of what was first a Greek town founded by colonists in 575 BC.  The remains of the Agora (market square) and houses can still be seen very close to the coast.  Later the Romans came and built their own town a little further from the sea.  According to Marta, our guide, the Romans came originally to cut off Hannibal’s supply lines as he made his march toward Rome.  Once he was defeated, the Romans stayed and colonized (or conquered) all of Spain.  Their town was considerably larger with more splendid houses but all in ruins as well.  Two fairly intact remains, one in each civilization’s town, showed an interesting contrast.  In both there is a nearly perfect floor mosaic.  The Greek is fairly plain with the Greek key running around the edge.  The Roman mosaic, on the other hand is much more intricate.  By the Middle Ages the towns were abandoned because they were too accessible to marauders coning by sea.  Only about 20% of the towns have been excavated so if they ever get around to digging through the rest who knows what may be found.

Ruins of the Greek town looking toward the agora and the sea

Greek mosaic floor found nearly intact

Roman town which was higher up the hill and more than double in size

Our next stop was the town of Begur also on the coast but on a hilltop.  A medieval castle built in the 16th and 17th centuries tops the hill.  The town is a popular tourist destination for beachgoers in the summertime.  We stopped for another reason though.  After Columbus stumbled upon the Americas and Spain gained vast colonies there, young men from poor families would get passage to the New World by working as sailors on the trading ships.  Once there they would work and try to make their fortunes.  Many did succeed and became wealthy people in the sugar and tobacco industries in Cuba and Puerto Rico.  After the Spanish-American War when Spain lost the last of its colonies there, these families had to decide if they wanted to stay and not be Spanish anymore or return to their homeland.  Many returned with their wealth and a number came back to Begur where they built splendid houses.  These people are called Indianos here in Catalan.

Their homes are really quite beautiful with intricate wrought iron balconies and doorways.  While they are all privately owned we could see into the lovely entrance courtyards and from a street behind we could see the spacious gardens they had.  I guess these Indianos were the nouveau riche of the early 20^th century.

Lovely entrance courtyard of an Indiano house

This Indiano house incorporated an original medieval watchtower

One of the more colorful Indiano houses

On our walk through the town as well as on our drive between towns, we saw a lot of yellow ribbons tied to trees, signs, and guard rails.  There were also signs about the vote for Catalan independence from Spain.  A referendum was held last fall and the separatists won.  The government in Madrid said the vote was illegal and many of the leaders of the movement have been jailed.  We saw this sign hanging from the town hall in Begur.  The translation is "Free the Political Prisoners."  It's still obviously a movement that is very much alive and the yellow ribbons tied everywhere are a reminder of that.

Political sign on the town hall

After a brief walk through the town we headed back to the ship.  As we walked Marta told us about the tramuntana, a big wind that blows 360 days of the year here.  It wasn’t too bad at the moment but it seems to have picked up since we got back so the captain will have fun getting us out of the harbor this evening.