Breakfast in London, lunch in Paris, dinner in Girona
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| View over Girona from the city walls |
Two and a half weeks before Easter, I found out about an event that was being held over the Easter weekend, in Santa Coloma de Farners, Girona, Spain. After deciding I wanted to go to it, I consulted the excellent site at http://www.seat61.com/. This is very reliable source of information about train travel. He suggested a train journey that allowed one to breakfast in London, lunch in Paris, and dine in Barcelona. This looked pretty good, so I booked up all the tickets.
The journey was made up of three rail journeys: from Milton Keynes to London by Virgin Pendelino train; Eurostar from London to Paris; and then TGV from Paris to Girona. A bit unusual to have Virgin the slowest, and shortest train. The journey was planned to be 11 1/2 hours, but was delayed in the south of France, and into Spain. As a result it was was about 12 1/4 hours, plus one hour change in time zone. Still the original idea of breakfast in London, lunch in Paris, and dinner in Girona held.
I had planned my journey so that I had most of the day after travelling in Girona. This is a city with a history stretching back to roman times, and a substantial surviving medieval area. The old town is surrounded by city walls. These provide a very interesting walk, with quite a lot of up. This was my main activity for the Thursday, apart from getting from Girona to Santa Coloma de Farners in the late afternoon. Girona is a very pleasant place, with friendly people, and relaxed traffic. Throw in good weather while I was there - both before and after the retreat - meant it was a very relaxing and enjoyable place to be in.
Spain
I am now in the hills above Sils, about half an hours train ride from Girona, plus half an hours taxi ride. I am at the Kagyu Sayme Deshi Ling monastry for a short retreat.
This area is outstandingly beautiful. Flowers, trees, shrubs of all sorts all buzzing with life. This life ranges from bees the size of my thumb, to butterflies smaller than the nail on my little finger. And ants. And ants. And ants.....
The monastery itself is an exact equivalent of the UK version of the big house plus home farm (buildings, not (much) land), all repurposed now of course.
