A la recherche du temps perdu!

In the early 1980s we would drive to a villa in the North of Spain near to the mediaeval town of Pals. At the time we rented accommodation on the edge of the town at Masos de Pals, which had a thriving urban area with holiday homes and a centre with pool and tennis and food cabanas or huts. The town of Pals was quite run down, but did have an old restaurant, which served authentic Spanish food as opposed to chicken and chips and, which was frequented by the local population.

During the Easter school break this year we went to Vilafranca, one of the main towns of Catalonia, near enough to Pals by car, so we decided to revisit our old haunt. Sadly the holiday resort area is closed and by the derelict state of the pool and the tennis court etc. has been for some time. Whereas the Gothic Quarter of Pals has been substantially restored and there are cobbled streets interrupted by semi-circular arches, façades with pointed arched windows and stone balconies. The town was also very busy with tourists and in contrast to the holiday villa area, seemed to be thriving.

The main reason I took this particular blip was that in school we were studying "The Romans" (as one does in primary 4) and I thought this would show a good example of how streets might have been lit in earlier centuries.

Our own children were quite upset by the photographs we had taken of the dilapidated state of our holiday area.