TOSSA DE MAR

Anna had done some reading a few weeks prior and had come across this little beachside town called Tossa de Mar.  It was a bit of an effort to get there, but after a 4 hour bus ride to Girona, an hour wait and then a 50 minute bus ride, we finally arrived.

We were immediately impressed with what we saw.  Curving around a boat-speckled bay and guarded by a headland crowned with defensive medieval walls and towers, it was a picturesque village of crooked narrow streets with plenty of drinking and eating options.

Lonely Planet stated that in July and August it would be hard to reach the waters edge without tripping over oily limbs, but we didn't mind, as some of those limbs would be ours!

We settled in to the Mana Mana Hostel, a great hostel that had only opened the previous week and had brand new everything, it was great.  Of particular note to us was the soap dispensers in each shower - haha the things that get you excited when travelling!

The hostel was in a perfect location, only a street or so back from the beach and main street.  We unpacked our stuff and went out to explore and have dinner.

even the street signs were cool

It seemed that although there were plenty of dining options, most of it was overpriced and under performing tourist crap and unfortunately the place we chose was in this category, hence there is no photos of any of our food haha.

We polished off our bottle of rose and left (but definitely paid, as the service was fine haha).  The beach looked beautiful, all lit up with the lights on the nearby walls and towers of Monte Guardi, so we walked around for a bit before heading home.

The next morning we had breakfast and then bought some supplies from the nearby supermarket to make sandwiches for lunch.  We then set off to the most northern part of the main town beach and enjoyed beautiful perfect hot weather, crystal clear water, plenty of fish to look at and even a couple of small cliffs to jump off.

After a solid 6 hours on the beach, we had smashed out heaps of our books and had caught more than enough sun, so we called it a day.  Walking back past Platja Gran, the busiest part of the beach, an aerobics class was just getting under way.  Anna toyed with the idea of joining in, but I was laughing so much at all the retards that had already joined in, that she decided against it haha.

It was a perfect summers night that night and I had no intention of wasting it, so whilst Anna had a rest, I went down to the supermarket and stocked up on beers.  At about 7:30ish we walked up through Villa Vella (old town) to Monte Guardi on the headland to chillax with a few drinks, amazing views of the ocean and sky and to partake in a lot of people watching.

We had both been subject to plenty of sun that day and it was just perfect sitting there with a few cold beers and a cool breeze cooling our skin down!

all the hairs on my body are turning white!

Earlier in the day we had booked dinner at a restaurant in our street called 'Taberna de Tossa'.  It hadn't been recommended to us by anyone, but we had walked past it the previous night and it looked pretty good.  Our table was not yet ready when we turned up at 9:30pm, so we hopped 2 metres across the narrow street to a cocktail bar and had a pre-dinner beverage.

The restaurant had French Routards (similar to Lonely Planet) from the last 4 years on its outside wall, so as we say, the restaurant was retarded enough for us to give it a shot........it didn't let us down!!!

Anna again went for the muscles for entree and I went for the chicken croquettes, exactly the same starters as we had had the previous night in Valencia, however this time the service was much better!

I can't remember what Anna ate and I don't care haha, because my slow cooked lamb shoulder was one of the greatest things I have eaten in the last 27 and a half years.  Apart from the meat itself, the onions and tomato and whatever else was in the sauce made it one sweeeeeeeeeeet dish!

welcome to my top-5

We had a great table outside and I was in such a good mood after a great day and a great meal, so we sat there for a while with a few more drinks before calling it a night.

The next morning we awoke with slight headaches, but nothing some salt water wouldn't fix.  We decided to buy a ticket for the glass bottom boat that would take us north along the coast, visiting a few grotto's (caves) along the way, before dropping us off at the beautiful Cala Giverola.

not everything on the beach was a great sight!

Unfortunately we missed the 11am boat, so we had to wait around for 30 minutes for the next one.  The sun was absolutely scorching and Anna was feeling the pinch from the day before, so she sat in the shade, whilst I had a swim and sat on the beach watching all the goings on.

The boat went fairly fast, so we didn't get a chance to see all that much in the way of marine life, but we did happen to look down at one stage and think we saw something massive, until we realised they were scuba divers haha!

It was actually much nicer looking out of the boat at the coastline.  With zero high rise buildings along the main beach of Tossa de Mar and then hardly any buildings at all along the next 4km, it was a really beautiful sight.

We visited a few caves along the way which was interesting, but unfortunately we were not allowed to jump out of the boat, which would have been cool to swim around a bit.

We arrived at Cala Giverola around midday and were able to spend the next 4 or so hours there before getting the 4:30pm boat back into town.  The beach was an absolute stunner with the clearest of water and tiny little pebbles instead of sand which were so comfortable to lie on.

Being a pretty small beach, there wasn't a whole lot of room, but we managed to find a spot pretty close to the water and got ourselves for another strenuous day!

Within about 10 minutes of lying down, an older couple showed up and sat down next to us.  We couldn't tell what country they were from, but they certainly weren't from Spain.  One thing was for sure though........the lady had the most ginormous knockers we had ever ever ever ever seen, oh my god, there aren't words available to describe how big they were.
We both couldn't take our eyes off them all day, she must have thought we were the biggest perverts, but seriously we didn't know they came that big, her poor back haha!
At one stage she was lying naked on her back and they were literally touching the ground on the sides.
Anyway, at one stage while I was snorkelling, they swam right out near me while I was taking a few photos, so I couldn't help but take a sneaky picture so that when we look back on this blog, we can remember and have a laugh haha.

We weren't that hungry for the majority of the day, but we managed to fit in a hamburger and chips from the small shack at the back of the beach and then before long, it was time to leave.

arriving back at Tossa's main beach Platja Gran

As mentioned previously, the hostel was in its first week of operation and that night they had a BBQ and drinks on their rooftop terrace.  It was really great and we met some really nice people from Spain, America and even one Australian from Canberra (I didn't even know they existed!!), but without a doubt, the real highlight was meeting Inge from Rotterdam in Holland.

Praise be to god that Anna struck up a conversation with Inge, because she found out that Inge was driving back to Holland the following evening and was only to happy to drop us off in Montpellier in France along the way.  We had been shitting ourselves for the best part of a few days, worried about how we were going to sneak Anna over the border with her VISA issues, but it seemed that our prayers had been answered!

We celebrated by going out for a few cocktails and then a few beers!

a nice Aussie couple we met from Brisbane (although the bird is originally from Israel)

Anna with the bird from Canbera, an American and our new best friend Inge

We had originally planned to leave quite early the next morning, but as Inge wasn't planning to leave until 9pm that night, we had found an extra day to spend on the beach.  This time we chose to walk through the old town and checkout the beach on the other side of the headland.  It was possibly an even better beach than Cala Giverola the day before because of its high cliffs and awesome view of the old town's towers when you swam out and looked back.

There was plenty of interesting marine life around, but unquestionably my highlight of the day was finding a sick cliff to jump off, which I proceeded to spend half the day climbing up and jumping off, climbing up and jumping off etc etc etc.

Anna was getting pretty over the sun by the early afternoon, she had even developed a really cute sweat moustache haha.  I made a deal with her that if she swam out into the water and took a few shots of me jumping off the cliff, that we could then go home and get our stuff ready to leave.

Although the hostel owners were really nice and let us keep our luggage in the reception area for the whole day (plus let us use their kitchen, their electricity ports, their toilets, pretty much everything, without having to pay anything - that is unheard of in hostelworld), we felt a little bad and didn't want to use their showers, but we certainly needed one.......Anna had a great idea of bringing her shampoo along with her to the beach, so when we left we had a shower there and used the shampoo as soap, the perfect plan!

"Friday nights they'll be dressed to kill.....down at Dino's bar and grill.  Drinks will flow and blood will spill, now that the boys are here again! The boys are back in town, the boys are back in town!"

I couldn't help but sing this all night as we had a relatively quick meal at Dino's pub, before hitting the road, bond for the Spanish/French border.

We were following the GPS like a hawk, and with a few km's to go, Anna and I held hands and hoped to god that it all worked out..........

In the end it was a piece of cake, it was so late at night (about midnight) that the border control station wasn't even open and we just drove straight through like it was a normal road.  We were so happy, we screamed and yelled and screamed some more and before long we had arrived in Montpellier.......Safe for a few more weeks until we try and cross into Switzerland.