Day 5 Girona

Left Barcelona this morning. It was a good stay. Took the bus to the airport, picked up the rental car, and headed north from Barcelona up the Mediterranean coast to Girona. This part of the country is called the Costa Brava and is interesting because the whole way up there is the road, next to the road is the railroad, then a path next to the beach , and the beach all the way up the coast. So you can walk, drive, or take a train the entire length of the Costa Brava. It was a pleasant drive since it was Sunday and there was little traffic. We eventually got to Girona, even with GPS finding our hotel - AC Palau de Bellavista - was a bit of a problem, but after a bit of lively discussion we managed to get there. It's a beautiful new and modern hotel and we knew it was little outside of the old town, but we didn't know it was up a mountain. We found out soon enough that it took 15 minutes to get to old town but at least 30 to get back. We made several trips, one to partake in a bit of sangria and a pizza, and the other for dinner. The pizza was uninteresting and the sangria a bit better. However, dinner was another story. It was Sunday night and there's very few restaurants open. We wandered around for quite awhile looking for something interesting before deciding on Restaurant Llevataps. It was before 9 and there weren't many people there so we weren't very sure about it. It turned out was a pretty good pick and enjoyed it a lot. Sylvia ordered a perfectly done duck breast in a sweet potato puree, and I had cod over an apple and black pudding puree - I have no idea what a black pudding is but it was good. The highlight of the dinner was dessert, especially the chocolate truffles with flake salt and olive oil they made to look like fish roe. We also ordered tarte tatin with ice cream. The place was full when we left and headed back up the mountain...well, semi-mountain.