Sunday, August 16th - Mataro, Spain

Had another leisurely morning and relaxed over breakfast for quite some time.  Then decided to go to the beach for a while.  Well, that ended up being about five hours from noon to 5 p.m. and it was wonderful.

The beach is really nice and today was the most crowded that we have seen it.  It was still pretty empty given the fact it was a weekend and the weather was great.  I don't think the temperature got out of the 20's and there was a steady breeze coming from the Mediterranean but the sun was still hot.  Sun screen was definitely needed and after a couple of hours I was also wearing my long-sleeved shirt and keeping my towel over my legs - as protection from the sun, not to keep me warm.  The water seemed very cold at first but once you got in it was very refreshing.  I probably never got more than ten feet from shore but it was still up to my neck when the waves came in so that was more than deep enough for me.  I finally started reading one of the books I brought with me and have been carrying around for two months now, so it was a very relaxing afternoon.

About 5 p.m. we went up to a restaurant by the yacht club and had a bite to eat.  We decided we might as well have a meal there and then some munchies later rather than some munchies at 5 to hold us over until eating time at 8 p.m.  The eating establishments down at the beach may not have fancy food but what they have is available at all hours and that worked well for us.  After dinner we wandered down to the ice cream parlour also on the waterfront for dessert.  Ice cream (and a whole lot of other things) are definitely more expensive here than in Prague.  My single scoop was 1.80 euros ($2.70) here and in Prague it was about 180 koruna (90 cents) if you went to the right spot.  Of course I am sure there are cheaper places here in Mataro too.

Mataro is on the coast about 20 miles north of Barcelona in Catalonia.  It is the capital city of its area and has a population of about 125,000 people.  It is supposed to be a major business centre but so far we have yet to see that as everything has been closed since we arrived on Friday evening and the whole place has seemed deserted.  It will be interesting to see what it looks like tomorrow when a normal week starts again.  Of course it is supposed to be raining for the next several days so maybe we won't really be out to check it out for a few more days.

I think that's it for today.   Some more blogging and reading and then off to bed.