One day. That was about how long we survived the poolside rest after which new adventures became necessary. Well, not completely true: this week the weather here in Calafell is – what do we call it when it sucks? – variable. So here we were: freezing our bums off all covered with useless sun-screen, when Lidia emerged from behind a booklet she was reading and said: Gaudí. It doesn’t take long to say, but even so, she was not quite done, when I answered: let’s go.
Off we went after squeezing the car out of the hotel’s parking garage and guided by the ever-confused lady in the GPS thingy. Reus is a cosy Catalan town, close to Tarragona. Wikipedia says it is famous as a center for rock-climbing and as a birthplace of mr. Gaudí, the architect. Rock-climbing being great and all, still not our cup of tea, exactly. I know some nice people who enjoy climbing, but for us the modern Gaudí center was the ultimate attraction.
Being the birthplace of the master, Reus can’t boast any of his work, Barcelona was his playground. Still, the center is made with a lot of skill and love and tells the story with passion and grace. The rest you can go and read here: www.reus-tourist-guide.com as I am not trying to write a tourist book, noble an endeavor it might be.
On the wave of tourist advise: take care of where you stop to eat in Reus if your program includes getting hungry. We routinely ask about such things, but the recommendations we got from the tourist office this time were made in a little bit of a haste, I’m afraid I have to say. Or we were too hungry and jumped on the first of the mentioned options. Anyway, the cafés around the central square of the town, right next to the Gaudí center are – yes – way too touristy, with food being quite average and the service friendly but very, very slow. The most fun was reading the menu featuring delicacies along the lines of “Cut fish in seaworthy sauce” and “Rice attacked with vegetables” (still wondering what the heck it meant).
All of the establishments in the town center sport menus translated into Russian. In fact, I wonder if some of them actually had the advertisement chalked on the “menu of the day” blackboards solely in the tongue of Dostoyevsky. It is for a reason, too: my former compatriots, still so easy for us to spot – if not by hearing them speak then either by infamous “denim on denim” attire or by the ever judging, tense looks – are all over the place. For reasons unknown, in most Spanish towns we visited so far, the Russians were scarce; here on the contrary it looks and sounds as if Reus is on some sort of a shortlist of Russian travel agencies. Waiters have learnt to understand “stchyot, pozhaluysta” (“the bill, please”) and my built-in radar for Russian faces is tickled every five seconds.
Artig å lese Yuri, det ser ut som om dere har en fin ferie. Nyt den, her er det kald og aldri så lite regn !