Begur!

As part of Matt's 27th birthday gift, I arranged a surprise beach getaway. He had no idea where we were going until we got our boarding passes at the airport. All he knew was what the weather would be like, how long we would be gone, and that we needed to rent a car. So you can imagine the barrage of questions in the weeks leading up to it, but I revealed nothing!

The destination was Begur, Spain, in Girona along the Costa Brava, about a 1.5 hour drive north from Barcelona. We stayed at a fantastic little family-run hotel that turned out to be perfect. The beaches around Begur were all beautiful and we had many to choose from. It was really the most perfect little beach getaway and we really lucked out with the weather. Turns out that all the guests of that hotel had been asking for blankets all summer long because it had been unseasonably cold. But the weekend we were there was a comfortable 80 degrees on the beach and the water was cool and refreshing, and the evenings cooled down to about 65.

We arrived very late on Friday, landing in Barcelona at about midnight then having to wait on the Europcar line which wasn't long but was stupidly slow, then make the 1.5 hour drive up to Begur. When we arrived it was about 2:30 am, and luckily I had asked the hotel to have a bottle of red wine in our room. It was good to drink some wine on our private balcony and unwind.

We started the day off right on Saturday, waking up early and having a magnificent breakfast at our hotel and then driving down to La Platja Raco. In Begur, most of the inhabitants speak Catalan, which is a variation of Spanish that looks quite strange. Differences include the word for beach, which in Spanish is "playa" but in Catalan is "platja" and Spanish "agua" is "aigua". Luckily most people also spoke English, and the language was not a problem at all.

Adjacent to Platja Raco behind huge rocks was Illa Roja, the nudist beach. It also happened to be the most beautiful beach in Begur, by the looks of it. Why do the nudists get the nicest beach? It just isn't fair. So we had to stay in Platja Raco, because we didn't want to be nudies and we didn't want to have to be around nudies. Though the amount of topless old German and English women wasn't too appealing either. Is it really that big of a deal to have some tanlines? Leave something for the holy ghost! We also sat right next to an couple in their seventies, who everytime they went in and out of the water had to change bathing suits, very openly. It was actually quite hilarious.

Begur, as most of Spain, enjoys the traditional siesta. The beach tends to clear out around 1pm, and people start returning around 4pm, though far less. This also means that people don't dine until around 10. It's really great to see the town alive at night, with people of all ages. It's one of my favorite things about Spain.

On Sunday and Monday we tried new beaches. They were each great in their own right, and the water was cool and nice to swim in. On Monday Matt bought snorkeling gear and tried it out. We spent all of our days lounging on the beach, returning to the hotel around 5 most days and going out for dinner at 9.

This trip was our second time to Spain together, the first being our trip around Andalucia last August. It really is such a great place, full of culture, great food and great beaches. Check out our pictures below: