Strike up the band

EscalaIn my 20 years of visiting the Costa Brava I don't remember visiting Escala, although my wife insists we have been before.

So today was a new experience for me (no it wasn't, insists she who knows), and a very pleasant one. Lunch in a lovely little restaurant in Carrer del Mar called L'Escalenc, run by a lovely English lady from Brixton and her husband who from the food we had served to us today is a talented chef. The starter of fried anchovy and calamars was delicious and the two types of arros a la casola super tasty and full of fishy goodness. Wine of the house is from Esprit, one of my favourite vintners and not only was the food very good but at ?100 for the four of us it was excellent value too.

We passed up coffee and wandered along the passaig to a little bar facing the stony beach for an hour in the sun and human watching.

My blip is one of the many statues and sculptures that brighten up the sea front, this of a typical Catalan orchestra, so lifelike that I felt my feet moving instinctively in the steps of the Sardana (that'll be right ,snorts swk) more photos of Escala here.

It was a day of firsts, as we crossed the Fluvia on our country way home via Arenys d'Emporda we spied a mink playing on the river bank, unfortunately I was too slow to get a good shot but if any one wants an out of focus shot of a minks bum, I'm yer man.
Never seen a mink in the wild before, have to say for vicious killers they are very attractive.

Home by way of Vilajoan, a pretty hamlet near Bascara, to a fireball of a sun sinking in the west.

Happy St Patricks day to all my subscribers and any one else who happens across these inane ramblings