I unberstand that my posts are not getting on to my blog site. I can find them but maybe I have been putting them into drafts or something. At any rate it is May 30, I am in Olot waiting for a bus to Besalu with some time to spare so will see if I can try something else.

I got back into hiking on the 28th walking 10 km up a railtrail to St. Joan de A….. . Getting to the trailhead and then into town at the end it probably was closer to 12 km. At any I felt great and covered the distance in about 2 1/2 hours. I generally don´´t like these kind of trails because the grade is not demanding and the scenery dull, but in this case the scenery especially for the first half was quite enjoyable. You are surrounded on every side by what they call pre-mountains, some pastures and a couple of hamlets along the way. When I was finished I thought that I would have been able to do another 5 or 10 km but didn´´t have any idea where to find another place to stay except St Joan.

St. Joan (which is Catalan for St. John) is very picturesque. There is a quaint old stone bridge going into the town; lots of old churches, monestaries etc. For anyone that is into old architecture or history it is ideal. For me it is interesting but you see so many ancient structures in this country it gets ho-hum. I can appreciate all of the work that went into the stone masonry though. It must have been hurculean work five or six hundred years ago.

The trail is actually a fair height above the town and what was the old station was converted last year into an neat-looking albergue with a nearby restaurant. That seemed like a great idea to me so I checked the albergue as a possible place to spend the night. However, it was open only from 10 to 1 and then 5 to 8, so I went to see the town below thinking that I might check into the hostal that I had seen earlier from the trail. That idea didn´´t last long because at ground level it was easy to see that it was being demolished. There were signs for two Pensios downtown but I thought that I would speak with the tourist office first. Of course it was closed but opening again at 4 so I did some more wandering, found the bus ¨station”, noting that there was no bus out until the next day. When I checked the tourist office it was still closed but a new sign had been added that today it would only be open from 5. I really had nowhere else to go so made myself comfortable in one of the many little parks close by and had no trouble in dozing off. On queue, two attendants arrived at 5. Concerning the bus service, the form printed off on the computer showed that there was one leaving in about an hour. Thus there would be no need to look for a place to stay here so I headed back to the bus station wondering why the schedule posted differed from the computer. I took a close look at the printout and although I don´´t read (or speak) any Catalan it is close enough to Spanish that I can usually figure it out. I was pretty sure that the bus leaving in an hour only ran on Saturdays so returned to the TO where they confirmed my translation. Now I did need a place to stay but in my wanderings I had only found one of the pensios and it had ceased operations. The attendant called the other one but they were full apparently. That left the albergue as the only option so she called there to at about 5:30. It was an extraordinarily long conversation but in the end the word was that if I could get there before 6:00 they could put me up. Needless to say I hustled up the hill to check in. It was as neat inside as out. I don´´t know what the attendant had to do but after taking my passport he went into his office and didn´´t appear for close to ten minutes. I had a form to fill out too but also lots of time to spare. When he returned he advised that breakfast would be at 8:00. This was a problem since the latest bus yesterday left at 8:15. I suggested that I would skip breakfast until I got to Olot and he could reduce my bill accordingly. (By the way it turned out that he spoke about as much French as I which assisted in our communications). My suggestion didn´´t meet with his favour. Although it was obvious that I was the only client there was no way not to have breakfast provided. His solution was to phone the woman who came in on demand to “prepare” breakfast and she agreed that a 7:30 start would be OK. That problem being settled he successfaully escorted me to my room on the second try. There were five beds for me to choose from and a locked door which was a bonus in an albergue do I was feeling quite pleased with the way things had turned out. That was until I realized that he had not returned my passport and he was gone. I spoke to the cleaning lady who was still on duty who didn´´t seem very concerned. The guy in charge would be in at 10 in the morning and did I really need it anyway. In the end she said that the woman in charge of making breakfast would solve the problem. The bed was your typical hostal fare so along with its uncomfortableness, I had to worry about waking in time for breakfast (no alarm clock), whether the woman would be on time and retrieve my passport and whether I could get to the bus on time. I slept well until 4 but after that not so good. I was looking forward to checking out the modern looking shower but there were a couple of problems there. The shower head was stationery and aimed out the front door. The water started by pushing a knob and shut off automatically after 10 seconds. That was long enough to douse some of my clothing and towel that I had just dropped on the floor outside the front door. My first effort was to move the shower head then to try to find a way to turn off the water and finally to shut the door. With the automatic shut off there was no time for the hot water to arrive in the stall so I had my first cold shower in some time. It wasn´´t a promising start to the day. Nontheless, I wouldn´´t have to look for a place to have breakfast because the chef arrived on schedule and with a phone call to the man in charge was able to return my passport. I endured the worst breakfast of my trip. The highlight was a small bottle of orange juice, coupled with two slices of stale bread barely toasted and a cup of hot milk (from the micro) with instant coffee powder. (I didn´´t know that it existed in Spain.) Despite all of the problems the idea of the albergue and restaurant is a good one replacing the train station is a good one. By the way I had an excellent meal at the restaurant. I did make the trip down the hill to catch my bus with two minutes to spare so I needn´´t have worried. Nice trip to Olot .

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 3:27 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.