Last weekend we visited Pals, a medieval village with a population of around 2,500. Situated along the beautiful Costa Brava, you can walk through this picturesque village in 10-15 minutes.
Very well-preserved and still an active town, most structures here are small and made of stone. The streets are narrow and cobbled and you can’t help but be taken in by the quaint homes. It’s exactly the kind of place that comes to mind when you think of a medieval town. Everywhere you turn, you see beautiful arches, bucolic windows and stone balconies. I don’t think we saw a single brick structure in the entire town. Walking through, we couldn’t help but feel like we were on the set of Game of Thrones.
In fact, we were lucky enough to even encounter a small troop performing in the rustic town center. We saw dueling knights fight in front of a king, queen and other members of a royal court. They fought with their heavy swords and shields in full armor until one was defeated and fell to the ground. The winner was felicitated by the royals and rewarded. You might notice that the pictures are not up to the mark. The thing is that we forgot to carry our camera and hence had to make do with lower quality pictures taken on our cell phones.
We had lunch at a well rated local Mediterranean restaurant we found on TripAdvisor. We enjoyed some pizza and fresh mozzarella salad, accompanied by a fruity sangria made of Cava, the local equivalent of champagne.
Situated close to the town is the Playa de Pals. This picturesque beach, though fairly crowded, has been fortunate to escape the onslaught of commercial tourism. We enjoyed relaxing on the beach under our umbrella and reading. When it got too hot, every so often we took a quick dip in the water to cool off. Unfortunately, unlike some of the other beaches we have visited along the Costa Brava, the water here was not transparent. Not to say it wasn’t clean, but I am more comfortable being able to see through the water I am entering.
All said and done, we spent around 8 hours in this paradise and had a great time. We were also extremely fortunate to not have encountered any heavy traffic along the way and back.
Next, we’re planning on visiting another gem along the Costa Brava. More about that in next week’s post.
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