Travel
The Catalan Riviera
, [We publish on this page articles and notes which may help our readers in their plans for travel at horn, and abroad. They are written by correspondents who have visited the places described. We shall -be glad to answer queries arising out of the Travel articles published in our columns. Inquiries should be addressed to the Travel Manager, The SPECTATOR, 99 GOWCT Street, W.C. 1.—Ed. SPECTATOR.] SAN FELIU DE Guixors, where I have spent a considerable time since 1918, is well suited for a three weeks' holiday
almost at any time of the year. It is a town of fishermen and cork manufacturers, but it has more amenities than might be expected, since Barcelona families use it as a summer resort.
You will take a return ticket to Barcelona from London and get out of the train at Gerona, where you .must stay at least one night so as to wander about the streets after sunset and admire the effect of electric light upon medieval staircases and narrow cobbled streets. Gerona is perhaps the most neglected of Europe's beautiful cities and preserves an atmosphere of antiquity all the better for being so.
From Gerona to San Feliu is twenty miles- by road and nearly two hours by rail ; as always in Spain, a private motor car enhances the enjoyment and reduces the discomfort of travel. You can stay at the Hotel Muria, Las Noyas or Marina for about 8s. a day, and as the iea bathing is superb you will not mind the difficulty of getting a bath: San Feliu is quite modern and even clean ; it has no architecture or antiquities and yet its general aspect is most attractive by reason of the people who dwell therein. These spend all their leisure hours walking up and down the Passeig or Boulevard, the girls with bobbed or shingled hair and hatless, the fishermen in blue shirts, the peasants in smocks. There is bathing in elaborate baths, but no one uses them until after Midsummer day, ostensibly because the water is not lukewarm before then, but possibly because, as Frazer tells us, .devils and demons were believed to occupy the sea until St. John the Baptist day. Foreigners will Walk over the bill and bathe in rock pools at their own sweet will.
The great week in San Feliu is the first in August : for six days nobody goes to bed ; there is dancing in huge marquees and in the Passeig. A general air of gaiety hangs ovet everything and the girls put on the dresses they have been crenting for the last three months and give themselves over to being looked at and admired. There are sardanas danced twice daily under the trees and the visitor will sit for hours at cafe tables drinking vermouth and soda .and nibbling olives, while the rings of dancers move solemnly, almost religiously, from left to right and back again. I know of no better way of-spending a week than this. It is so possible to enter into the living spirit of the place, even though other places perhaps have more things to look at.
San Feliu is surrounded by cork forests in which various villages are submerged. In one direction is the perfect fishing village of Tossa surrounded by niedieval walls and active with its little sardine fleet. Up the coast in the other direction are a succession of places each with its own particular grace. You will want to see Palafrugell and Torroella de Montgri ; Ampurias, with its Graeco-Iberian remains—there is an excellent hotel there and a summer's day can be spent in peace looking at the Gulf of Rosas and the line of the Pyrenees; further north there are Estartit and Cadaques, both with clean though simple inns and incomparable bathing. Inland beyond Gerona you must go one Sunday to Banyoles or Olot in order to see an upland peasant market scene : the men all wear scarlet barretinas, or caps of liberty, black smocks, scarlet, green or purple sashes, corduroys and white canvas shoes • and stand about in picturesque groups exchang- ing views, while their wives sell vegetables and live stock. You can get to either of these places by motor 'bus from Gerona, and you will insist on exercising your right as foreigners to do odd things and climb on top of the 'bus to sit among the baggage. In this way you will see the country sublimely well.
Your last days you will spend in Barcelona whither you go from Gerona by train. Here you will once more spend most of your time sitting about at cafes in the open air. You will see the old town and especially the Cathedral and Santa Maria de la Mar and you will see the most childish of all modern buildings, the unfinished and unfinishable Cathedral of the Sagrada Farnilia; you will go on a cool evening to Tibidabo there to over-eat as you watch the gorgeous lights of the City 'at your feet ; you will wander down the Ramblas where the flower market is held, and if you are there in time you will of course see the Exhibition. Then you will go back to England direct from Barcelona.
I have assumed that you will go by the old route to Barcelona cid Port Bou and Cerbere. If you can go by the newly completed line cid Bourg-Madame and Puigcerda you must- by all means break your journey at Puigcerda to see the Cerdagne, At Ribes to enjoy a mountain village and the simple hospitality of the Hotel Prats, or at Vich to see the magnificent museum of primitive ecclesiastical art. In this case you will go north from Barcelona to Gerona and San Feliu. On your return journey you can regain the railway by two days' exquisite 'bus riding, Gerona-Banyoles-Olot (where you will sleep) San Juan de lea Abadesses-Ripoll and so home by train. This last is a sublime piece of mountain- eering on wheels. The following practical details may be of use :—
Travelling and hotel expenses in the district of which I speak should not come to more than 12s. a day for a good many excursions. As to ahopping, coffee costs anything from 25c. to 45c. a cup, ver- mouth 50c. Liqueurs are cheap. The best wines are White Rioja, and Melia at about 3 pesetas a bottle. In the villages, shoes made of canvas should be bought ; these are always cheap. Nobody will overcharge in this district, and bargaining or other forma of self-protection are quite unnecessary An isolated meal such as lunch is always rather more expensive (3s. or 4s.), but at a clean inn it is worth it. For tipping 10 per cent. suffices for -everything-10 centimos or 15 if you just have a cup of coffee. Cigars at 20 centimes (cigarillos de viente) are excellent, and the traveller will find that stamps must be bought at a cigar shop and not at a Post Office.
JOHN LANGDON-DAVIES.
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