Getting yourself involved when in Spain

I was sitting in the main square of my town, enjoying a “cortado”, (small strong coffee with a dash of milk), when a friend, in the company of 2 others passed by. They joined me and I discovered that the couple had recently bought a house in a particularly pretty village nearby. They are really excited about their new home and are looking forward to retiring there in a couple of years' time. We chatted and they seem to have thought about most things related to moving to another country and indeed living full time away from their homeland, but I wondered to myself if they as yet realise that the winter here in Catalunya can be long and cold or mild and damp or very pleasant – one just doesn't know. Might they feel a little isolated in their pretty village?

Next time I see them I shall tell them about the U3A Costa Brava which is an excellent and very active organisation of which I am a member. The U3A began in Toulouse, France, in 1972 as a summer school for retired people, based around the university. In the 1980s the idea had developed into an association based on self -help and run by the members themselves in various towns and cities. Today the U3A is present in most countries, the latest association having been formed in Hong Kong.

Here on the Costa Brava we are very fortunate to have a U3A group providing around 40 different activities, some weekly, others monthly. Of course, you can't join everything, but there is such a wide variety of interests, you are bound to want to join several of them. The only requirements to join are that you are over 50 and speak English, so our members are not confined to British ex-pats as we have Dutch, German, French, American, Japanese & South American members too. Annual membership is currently 14€ per person.

One of my favourite is the Local Interest group, which is about discovering more of the area in which we live. Members arrange visits to interesting and sometimes unusual places and always with a good lunch afterwards in a local restaurant. In fact, I am involved with a friend in leading the group this month to the Civil War Museum in La Jonquera, the main border town with France. We will have an English-speaking guide and will learn more about the Spanish Civil War and its effects on the local population, which suffered very badly. I think it is necessary to learn these things to better understand the people in whose land we now reside.

I also belong to one of the many different walking groups, petanca, gardening and family history groups. I hope that the couple I met the other day will join the association as apart from anything else, the U3A is a social organisation, so they would feel less isolated and lunch is always on the agenda after the activity if you choose to join others at the restaurant.

Interesting activities are not solely confined to the U3A however. You can learn Catalan and Spanish (very advisable to learn one if you are planning to live here!), join a gym, go to Pilates and yoga classes, play golf and tennis, learn to dance Sevilliana, Flamenco or Sardanes, the list is endless.

At the weekends, I really enjoy going to antique and second-hand street markets or to a car boot sale which is held every weekend further up the coast towards France. It is amazing what you can find as people of all nationalities take stalls and sell a vast variety of items they no longer need. I must do the same one of these days as I have boxes of stuff that I no longer use and someone else could employ. My nearest market is in the beautiful town of Pals on Saturday mornings, located in a circular park.... I need to sort out the items, load my car & go, but Saturdays are so busy with other things!

Until next time

Sally

The Overseas Guides Company
http://www.spainbuyingguide.com/

Guess the amount of documents we needed!

I went with a friend to Girona the other day. Girona is the capital city of my corner of Catalunya and home to all the government and administrative offices as well as having a wonderful old town with cobbled streets, a cathedral, Arab baths, parks and an archaeological walk around what is left of the ramparts.Girona is largely unspoilt by tourism and is a discreet city often overlooked by travellers heading for the bright lights of Barcelona, about 90kms to the south. Straddling the banks of the River Ter, the brightly painted old houses hang over the water as sentinels of times gone by. The old town is a maze of alleyways and little squares, each keeping its own secret – perhaps a cafe in the cellar, perhaps a shop frontage that has withstood the ravages of centuries past. On the other side of the river is the “new” town, part of it very much of the 18th Century, with the lovely arched Plaça de Independcia teeming with restaurants and tapas bars. Not too far away is the covered market, open every morning. Girona is also a cultural city, with well presented museums and art centres as well as a strong musical tradition. After many visits, my friend and I have only touched the surface of this intriguing city .

Our trip was not for pleasure really as my friend decided she wanted to change her UK driving licence to a Spanish one and since her knowledge of both Castilian (Spanish) and Catalan is poor, she asked me to tag along as interpreter. Navigating ones way through Spanish bureaucracy requires extreme patience and fortitude. In fact, if you have an EU driving licence, you do not have to change it to a Spanish one, but you should register it with the traffic authority. My friend decided that she wanted to change hers, so we found ourselves at the offices of the Traffic Department.

It is vital before you go to any of the government agencies that you check..and recheck... what paperwork you need to present, otherwise you will have made a wasted journey, stood in a queue for ages and felt utterly frustrated. In the case of my friend and her driving licence, she needed to show:

• Proof of identity (passport original and copy)
• Proof of residence (Certificate of Registration in the Central Aliens Register - the NIE number (foreigners identification number))
• Valid driving licence to be exchanged (original and copy)
• Two recent photographs (32 by 25 mm)
• Declaration in writing stating that the applicant has not been banned or suspended from driving
• Declaration in writing stating that the applicant does not hold another driving licence of the same class in another country
  

Her new licence will arrive by post & will be credit card size. I should mention we were lucky that day as the queue was short and we were dealt with by a very pleasant and helpful lady who insisted on explaining everything to us twice as she somehow worked out we were foreigners!
Business done, we headed for Girona old town for lunch. We settled on a restaurant called Mimolet, near the cathedral, not the cheapest but which serves very good bar food. The weather was kind that day, so we sat outside on the terraza enjoying a well earned glass of Cava – Catalunya's answer to champagne and very good it is too!

It was time to head home, but not before we agreed to come back to Girona sooner rather than later to go window shopping (at least that is what my friend said) and sit at a cafe on the Rambla Llibertat watching the world go by, perhaps visit an Art Exhibition or come back on a Saturday when there is a huge market (also on Tuesdays) and a flower market on the Rambla. It is just a question of finding the time.........

Sally Veall
The Overseas Guides Company
Have you visited the main website yet? http://www.spainbuyingguide.com

Have you ever been to a mushroom festival?

Do you like mushrooms? I adore mushrooms – not the closed-cap variety available all year in supermarkets – no, real mushrooms, hidden in the woods in secret places, which when found, are carefully picked, carried gingerly back home and then cooked in virgin olive oil, garlic and parsley. Absolute heaven!

Well, it is mushroom season in Catalunya, North Eastern Spain. Many small villages and larger towns hold mushroom festivals here, where you are drawn into this secret world of fungi. They lay out every type of mushroom you can imagine and carefully signal which are edible are which are likely to cause illness and even death if eaten. Then there are the tastings.."rossynols" are my favourite, a deep yellow with long fine stalks. Also there are "ceps", the most expensive, selling at 50-100€ a kilo, with a deep mushroom colour and intense mushroom flavour.

Tastings are not confined to local festivals. Many restaurants have special menus using the various types of mushroom and it is definitely worth a visit to one or more as somehow the local chefs manage to make an "ordinary fungus" taste like nectar from the gods. In fact, Catalunya is home to many culinary delights, one of the most famous restaurants in the world, El Bulli, is situated just across from the French border in Cadaques. Sadly, the owner, Ferran Adria, has decided to close it for two years and is taking time out to reinvent his cuisine and is currently working in Barcelona.

You don't need to spend a fortune, however, to eat well here. I frequently go out with friends for lunch and we are served a three-colour meal for 10 – 14€ per person, usually including a good local wine, water and bread. It costs more in the evenings – I have never really understood why, except that the lunchtime clientèle includes workmen and in the evenings, the restaurants imagine that they have a different clientèle, which is not usually the case, except that the workmen are now dressed for dinner. We tend to enjoy our lunches and entertain at home in the evenings, except of course on special occasions when throwing caution to the wind, we head for one of the "better" restaurants and usually are truly favourably surprised at the quality and service we receive for around 30-40€ a head.

My local restaurant which has a delightful outside space in a semi-private garden (which I overlook!!), serves an excellent lunchtime meal for 12€ all in. They have a vast menu of starters and a smaller but excellent choice of main courses and most of the "postres" (deserts) are home made. The wine is excellent too. My friends and I have enjoyed many a happy few hours there, in the shade of the garden in hot summer and if we decide to splash out on a second bottle of wine, we are charged only about 7€. One does not, of course, spend every day having lunch in such delightful places. There is a very active U3A here on the Costa Brava which invites one to visit interesting localities … but more of this in my next Blog.

Meanwhile, if you are anywhere near a mushroom festival, (in the UK, France, Italy or Spain) I urge you go along, increase your joy and knowledge by discovering one of nature's best kept secrets.

Sally Veall
The Overseas Guides Company
Go to the main website at: http://www.spainbuyingguide.com/

Autumn Leaves and walks by the sea - Bliss

Autumn, according to the poet John Keats, is a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and this is also true here in Catalunya, northeast Spain. The days are still warm but there is a chill at night and early morning, mists hover over valleys and many trees are now bearing their fruit. It is the step between the long hot summer and the winter months ahead, lulling us back into the warmth of our homes. Yes, here we have all the seasons.

Autumn brings us golden and red leaves which start falling, flocks of starlings on their way south...I reckon each evening there are about 300 perched on roof tops, a nearby crane and in the treetops which I look out at from my office. It is an amazing sight. Autumn also brings with it more unpleasant things, coughs and colds, flu season and central heating. Thankfully, the National Health Service here is available to rescue us. Each region of Spain runs its own health service and the system in Catalunya is excellent. I had my free flu jab yesterday, available to those over 60, people with respiratory and lung problems and also to children at risk. For the rest, there is a small cost to have the vaccine. Most towns and large villages have a medical centre known as the CAP (Centre de Attenció Primària) which is like a large clinic with GPs and other front line medical staff plus an emergency department which is open day and night.Their job is to treat your condition if they can or to refer you to the local hospital or specialist if they can’t.

That brings me to the local hospital, in my case located in a pretty seaside town called Palamós. Unfortunately, I have got to know this place rather well during the time I have lived here and once you get used to the system (which isn’t particularly cosy nor blessed with a great bedside manner), you will find an excellent medical service with totally up-to-date X-ray, scanners and other necessary medical aides. Their job is to cure you.

CAP PALAFRUGELL
(local health centre)

Of course autumn brings other activities too. Walks by the sea bathed in the lowering sunlight, jazz evenings in courtyards, sitting in local restaurants with a group of friends bemoaning the fact we can no longer sit outside at night, but warm and comfortable in the rustic interiors. And let's not forget the tramuntana wind which comes from the Pyrennees and blows hard with a distinct chill for 3 days, it's dryness taking humidity out of the air.

Yes, autumn here on the Costa Brava is a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Please contact me if you have any questions about life on the Costa Brava.

Sally
The Overseas Guides Company
Visit my main website at: http://www.spainbuyingguide.com/