Wednesday, August 19th - Mataro, Spain

This morning was a quiet one and allowed for a slow breakfast and some blogging time.  I may get caught up on some of my blogs but I doubt I'll get them all done since I have so many outstanding.  And some of them are from so long ago that I'm not sure I'll remember what happened at all on some days.

About 2 p.m. I headed to the beach and stopped for a quick lunch on the way at an outdoor cafe.  The temperature is still only in the low 20's but it is lovely.  From our hotel it is about a 15 minute walk down to the beach.  I then just sat and read for a couple of hours and it was lovely.  I didn't get in the water but a lot of people were in swimming.  It was windier and the sea was rougher than on other days but it was still nice.

I then walked back up to the town centre and to the museum.  It looked pretty quiet so at about ten to 6 I decided I might be at the wrong place.  I walked back to the information centre and checked with them and they told me how to get to the right place.  Apparently the Museum of Mataro has several different branches and I was just at the wrong one.

The Can Serra museum branch is an old house that has been converted to a museum and it has four floors.  As I arrived there were three people in the lobby and the tour guide was already talking to them.  She acknowledge me but didn't stop her talk.  I followed her around for a few minutes and then decided she was not going to say anything in English.  I went to the front desk and asked the gentleman there if there was an English tour and he said no.  I then asked for materials in English and he said they didn't have any.

I wandered through the whole museum and there was not a word in English.  Everything was in Catalan.  That might seem okay if you are being a tourist in Catalan but we're in Spain and the information is not even available in Spanish.  I might be able to understand some of that.  People from Madrid who come to visit wouldn't even be able to read the writing.  When I went back to the information desk and mentioned this to the girl there she said it is a big problem.  The tourism office does everything in several different languages but the cultural department just hasn't done anything yet.  She said they get lots of complaints, especially from non-Catalan Spaniards, which I can well imagine.

Anyway, the museum had several parts.  There was a Roman part which showed a lot of Roman artifacts and a Mediterranean part which had different kinds of exhibits.  They looked like any other exhibit but I really have no idea what they were exactly.  I could figure out that it was the history of Mataro which was once a Roman settlement and of course is on the Mediterranean.  I'm not sure where the relics were taken from but I may find out some of that when we do some tours of the ruins (assuming they are in English).

The ground floor of the museum had an exhibit of photographs by Toni Vidal.  The photos were mainly head shots of Catalan people but there may have been a few other shots as well.  They were good photos but I didn't know many of the people so it was not exactly a exciting exhibit.  I did recognize the names of Salvador Dali and Joan Moro though - both artists.  I can't say that I recognized their photos because I didn't, but I did recognize the names when I read them.

I went back to the hotel after the museum, had a shower and got ready for dinner.  We just went down to our local pub and I ordered a small salad and chicken wings.  They said they didn't have any salad so I switched to fries.  The plate of fries was more than enough for two people to share so I definitely didn't eat them all although they were delicious.  My chicken wings arrived and it looked more like a hot dog.  When I questioned her she realized the kitchen had prepared the wrong  # 11 so she took it back.  The wings that came shortly thereafter were delicious.  So, another not so healthy meal but a tasty one.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and I was ready for bed by 10.  Meanwhile, outside the window there were a lot of young children hollering and having a great game of something.  The normal day ends late here and then starts later in the morning.  Then of course they get a 3-4 hour siesta in the afternoon so they are definitely ready to go all evening long.  As a tourist, and one that has to start a bus tour shortly, it's hard to switch to a totally different schedule.  It's only one more week so I'm sure we'll survive on our own schedule even if it is out of synch with the locals.