Port Bou, Spain

When taking the train along the southwest coast of France, going into Spain, you have to change trains immediately upon entering Spain at Port Bou. There were a couple of hours in between trains, so I grabbed my bags and headed down into the village.

Port Bou seems to be a small, sleepy village, (granted, it was Sunday,) that clusters around a small, sheltered port on the Mediterranean. Tall cliffs surround the city on every side, so it was very still, sunny, and warm, even vineyards were growing on steep terraces over the town. There is a trim embarcadero along the sea, and a gravelly beach right in the midst of the town, with restaurants and hotels clustered around, facing the small harbor. Through a cleft in the rocks, you can see out to the broader sea, a narrow alleyway which you would have to shoot through to get a boat to open ocean. There were sunbathers on the sand, and children scrambling over rocks near the cliffs, exploring the tidepools.

I sat at a restaurant across the street from the sea, and ordered the menu of the day - fried sardines and paella, with a carafe of rose. The sardines here are delicious - larger fish than what we are accustomed to calling sardines here, and they are fresh, simply slit along the belly to clean them, a scrape of the knife to take the larger scales away, and then dredged through a light flour and salt batter before being dropped in olive oil. They come out crispy, delicate, and delicious - you can pretty much scrape them lightly off the bone with the tip of your fork, flip them over and repeat. Delicious! The last time I had sardines this good was at Pilar, in Napa, and they were Santa Barbara caught sardines.

The Paella was just okay. It was oily, and seemed to be heated up rather than made to order - but then they have a restaurant to run.

I wish I would have had more time to enjoy the sun, sit on the beach, and sip rose, but I had to get on my train back to Barcelona.

More pics, click here