Tossa: Resort and wildlife

Love this view

I know you were supposed to get a write up on our Pinya trip today but I've spent most of my time trying to identify wildlife in my photos so it will have to wait till the next time. Today you'll get a travelogue instead.

I always imagined Tossa de Mar as some sort of downmarket resort like Benidorm or San Antonio on Ibiza, you know the sort that sell carved dicks in the shape of bottle openers and Color Climax playing cards but the truth is, its nothing like that  Nothing like that at all.

If you want an analogy its more like a traditionally Spanish town (even though its Caledonia) in its outlook with a few touristy shops along with butchers and bakers.  There is a lot for the architecture and history buff to interest them including a Roman Villa, various period churches and of course the castle and Vila Vela the only medieval walled town still in existence in Spain.

St Vincenc Church

The main beach is split into 3, the main drag in the middle which depending on rainfall has a river running along it, at the far end away from the castle is Mar Menuda beach which houses a dive club, and a sheltered bay amongst small cliffs. At the other end past the castle is Playa Es Codolar a hidden cove with steps down past the castle which gets super busy so its worth doing a German and getting there early.  All three beaches have what can only be described as pea grit for sand (seriously I was thinking about bringing some back for potting its that rough) and the beach shelves quite sharply so if you cannot swim be aware that you can be quickly out of your depth.

Wildlife.

The river as describes runs through town and up into woodland, which is a joy to walk in, took many photos of the plantlife and bugs up there including a treasured shot of a Purple Emperor on its rare foray to the ground.  There are dedicated walks out to various places there with routes to Lloret de Mar and up to various monasteries. but for me its noting the butterflies flying around, Cleopatra, Clouded Yellow, Southern White Admiral, a Wood Grayling up in the Roman Ruins and Ilex Hairstreak and some Blues I can't quite place at the moment.

Yeah the river runs over the road

There are some cracking views out over the bay and of course of the old town and castle, this of course leads up across the cliffs to a mirador and the monks tower off by the ruins.  Its real life in your hands stuff which makes it all worth wile  when you do reach solid ground,  I'll leave you of some views and plants and bid you farewell.

Didn't mention that for the 1st week we had storms.

Aloe Greatheadii var Davyana

A View into Vila Vela

This is not publicity, I took this

Tossa De Mar

We're back, and we feel like hell, as usual as two weeks of sleeplessness and such claw their way back.

We stayed at the Golden Bahia a few ways off the main drag.  A few niggles here and their as their Wi-fi is patchy at best which means you'll need to either be up early or ideally have a Spanish sim to get 4g.  Also worse was the food not in quality or taste but availability as often when you went up you would find half of the things you wanted were unavailable.

Apart from that the weather wasn't the best for the first week either. Changeable is the watchword here with a few torrential downpours and storms over the mountains to really throw a few fucks into your day.  Not enough to piss you off, unless your'e the sort of scum that lays around the pool all day and gives the English a bad name, then quite frankly you deserve all you get.

We will get the TV done in the first post and then dedicate the second post to Pinya De Rosa garden in Blanes.  The third part is going to be about wildlife which will kill the month off nicely.

First of all some bits and pieces that got away.  A photo of a Michael Jackson impersonator called Garth Field, cue much Lasaga jokes  sadly deleted from my camera with no way to get it back.  A woman I saw on CGTN called Li Ke, which if I still did Youtube Vids would definitely have incorporated at the end with subscribe.  Allo Allo on Ocho, this came on a 7 pm so was at same time dinner started so didn't get the all important question every Allo Allo fan asks.  What does Officer Good Moaning Crabtree sound like... well... we never saw him in a scene so couldn't tell you.  Can say this that most of the people are pretty accurate and at least sound like their original actors (except Herr Flick), double thumbs up to all the seiyuu you did well.

Finally Pudsey dubbed in Spanish even though we took a photo of it trailed we fell asleep and missed it. I suspect it would still be horrible though maybe Paul Rose would get his wish and Pudsey will sound like Ray Winstone.

Ho humnnnnnnn

Nevertheless what I did see here was quite interesting. Apart from an influx of Jurassic Park due to the new film out, and more trails like the above (sin tetas no hay pariaso  (no paradise without tits) and whatever homo zapping was) and throw in a lot of news and world cup fever.  So Trump vs Kim Wilde and the like and a lot of football in various variations, including five aside (Futsal), women's football, under 19's and blind football (and no thats not a joke).  Oh yeah we found your porn channel hiding out on Rac105 (amended to Racist of course) that has a range of strippers and hardcore pron badly edited to be softcore. TBH I've seen better editing in YTP.

Kids channels have either Paw Patrol or some sort of Ladybird super hero which looked piss poor.
I did get to see a bit of Doraemon, more by luck than judgement and spent an enjoyable night time trying to decipher who did it in Detective Conan dubbed into Catalan.

English has the good the bad and the ugly, this includes the good France 24 and Euronews, the bad of course is Russia's Toady and the BBC Worst (World) Service, not exactly ugly was CGTN, which offers a Chinese version of the kind of safe space documentary that NHK used to do before they went all HD and we couldn't get it no more.
Russia had 1TVRUS which of course in a tribute to Resident Evil was named T virus. Its still not great and worse the only other channel was a christian channel, poor ruskies.

Germany did well with a full range of ZDF, RTL and VOX to entertain them with.  Kika is pretty good with some loaf character dressed as Sailor Moon or Robert Smith from the Cure (Harry Potter)

Sailor Loaf

I AM HEAVEN AND I NEED TO BE SLICED.

Also well done for having a few good BBC docs here, I clocked Dan Snow and the ever fit Dr Alice Roberts presenting something around 6 AM.

Tune in next time when I'll give you a low down on Pinya De Rosa.

HIatus

Another hiatus is coming up fast so will have stuff to report on when I'm back.

You know the drill by now any good tv / food and such. Maybe even get to see Doraemon this year.