Other places along the Catalan coast can be reached by train, or rather by train bus, which arrives every half hour. But if you want to go to Lloret de Mar from Calella, then after a short ride you will get off the train in Blanjes. It continues to Lloret by bus, which, admittedly, stops there, in front of the sleepy station building in Blanjes. But the hosts forgot to build a canopy or a waiting room, and the sun is already doing its job, even though it's only a little after nine in the morning. Since the railway did not reach the town surrounded on one side by hills and on the other by the sea, entering Lloret will bring us a series of ordinary scenes that are offered to curious eyes through the bus windows: saleswomen opening their shops, receptionists welcoming guests in the halls of large hotels, people waiting to be served in bakeries.
About forty kilometers from Girona and over eighty kilometers from Barcelona, Lloret de Mar is the most famous and among our people the most favorite town on the "Wild Coast" - Costa Brava. That has its reasons.
But those reasons remain hidden at first, when the bus stops on the platform of the concrete station, which has a lively, somewhat chaotic and somewhat sloppy appearance. Such stations have much larger towns. In the winter, Lloret shrinks to around 35 inhabitants, and in the summer season it grows to 000 people. Depending on the season, the town fluctuates between the population of Kragujevac and Zaječar.
Descent into Lloret
All the streets lead downhill to the coast, and the cross streets are always longer because they were built parallel to the sea. The first impression is that the town is a bit more genteel and self-conscious than Kalelja.
My companion already found something for herself in the first boutique near the station. This confirms the general impression I have every time I find myself in the Iberian Peninsula. Thanks to domestic fashion designers and companies, a freer and "sunnier" attitude towards colors, the Spanish take over the aesthetic primacy in the production of cloths.
Already taught by a several-day stay on the Catalan coast, we don't waste time looking for a cafe with a good cappuccino, but sit down at the first Italian in the garden, which consists of several tables along the street, and order an espresso.
There we connect to the Internet and study the city plan. We will spend the morning in the shady alleys of the center. We will have lunch in one of the Catalan bars that they recommend and call "bodega". When the afternoon heat subsides, we will explore the coastal part of the town, which already promises to be hot.
Sant Pere Street, which we take down to the center, is full of shops and bars. We go out to a beautiful square and our eyes are fixed on the church. Sant Roma in the heart of the old town offers unexpected colors and shapes.
The story of the church is actually the story of Lloret. The original settlement was on a hill, the first church was built there, because pirates often ravaged the coast. Only when the rule of the Counts of Barcelona in the 13th century extended to the Balearic Islands, which were captured by the Moors, did the development of the coastal part of the settlement begin. The Gothic church of Sant Roma, resembling a fortress, was built there in the 16th century.
In the golden ages that followed for Spain, wealth was made in overseas colonies. The story that will make this church a unique hybrid of old and new takes place at the time of the beginning of unrest in Cuba due to the efforts of the rebels to make the Spanish colony independent. As a boy, Narsis Đelats went from Lloret to Cuba together with his father, where they ran a tannery shop. Riots and revolts, the Spanish army suppressing them, brought Narcissus enormous wealth because he produced - military boots. When he heard that other emigrants from the old area - Americans as they were called by those who stayed at home - gave money for the expansion of the church in Lloret, he set aside the largest sum for the entire chapel in memory of his wife who died early. Narcissus never returned from Cuba, but, paid with his money, artists from the circle of the great Gaudi took up work on the Catalan coast, primarily Bonaventura Conilj and Montobio.
Our encounter with that building one hot morning at the end of September was one of those moments that travelers immediately know are unrepeatable. We decided to spend some time in the square in front of the church.
There were people sitting in the bars. Vermuteria, Catalan restaurant, pastry shop. The trees in front of the church are bent over, either by arbitrary growth or by the wind. All this gave the place a real identity - something that no marketing can invent.
We spend the next few hours walking aimlessly. Streets and alleys unfold before us, seducing us with details.
And the next square is full of bars and pubs. Varoš has crowded over 100 bars and discotheques along the coast, it has a good reputation as a place of crazy fun among young Europeans, but because of that it has a bad reputation among everyone else. The consequences are similar to those in Majorca or in recent times in Split - tourism of drinking and partying has taken off. But it is the night version of Lloret. During the day, the squares look idyllic.
The reaction of the city authorities to the rampage of the partisans was not absent. Pepper fines await those hanged guests who tilt a bottle in a public place, enter the city from the beach in bathing suits or disturb other guests with noise. Since 2018, the city administration has introduced a smoking ban on many parts of the beach, wanting to meet family tourists and soften the image of a place that was created for an all-day wild party.
IN THE WINE CELLAR
The first hunger reminds us that it is time to look for our bodega. In the Spanish countryside, this name originally denoted a kind of wine cellar, a room under a rock or in the ground, with a built-in entrance. It was a kind of trap where the wine matured. Over time, benches were placed in front of the bodega, the owner would sell wine, and then also some ham, cheese and bread.
In the cities, inns that pour good country wines and serve rustic dishes began to be called that. That's why we are looking for our bodega in Lloret.
Recommendations on the Internet are sometimes deceptive. But when we stopped in front of Bodega Manolo Kotano in a side street, away from the tourist bustle, I had the feeling that we were in the right place. There was enough room inside. A shady room decorated with hams, bottles of wine, family photos, as befits. The pleasant dry-haired owner with a wide smile recommended the house wine.
We were not mistaken. His white wine has a harmony that is the most difficult to achieve - a harmony of mineral, sweet with a trace of sour. On the menu, we first found a good meze - grice, olives and potatoes with spicy sauce.
Then we delved into the map. Fideua marinara is a dish that looks like paella, but is different. In this part of Catalonia, they like to use small noodles instead of rice.
What can be said except that we were lucky this time. The prices are moderate, the service is excellent and the owner and his wife run their bodega in a homely manner. At the end, we were treated to a liqueur with the taste of Catalan cream.
After such an experience, we walk towards the coast in a good mood. We can already hear the roar of the waves from afar. Today here the sea produces a lot of foam.
A NAME OLDER THAN THE FIRST RECORDS
According to some, the name Ljoret itself is derived from the Roman name Laureatum, which would mean the place of the laurel. Others believe that the name is almost a thousand years older, and that it refers to the old Iberian settlement of Loredo.
When we come ashore, I can't tell if there are plants with laurel leaves on the surrounding hills. But above the city is a hill on which are the remains of a fortress from the pre-Roman period.
In the 18th century, Lloret flourished as a port, it was the time of overseas trade. Young men eager for adventure went to Cuba, acquiring wealth there in one way or another, only to return to their homeland and build a house. The returnees were called Indianos. One of the most famous emigrants from Lloret is Konstatino Ribalegva, who in 1899 as a boy shaved in Cuba, worked there as a bartender, until he saved enough to buy a bar. There, he gave an innovative treatment to cocktails that attracted the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene. Dajkiri is a drink for which the guy from Lloret will be remembered as a legend in the world of cocktail lovers.
During the decades of prosperity, old farm houses were demolished, and new, neoclassical or modernist ones were built. Around the end of the First World War, wealthy families from Barcelona started building summer houses in Lloret. The first hotel was also opened.
And like along the entire coast, the originally harmless tourism has turned into a summer migration of continental people to the coasts since the sixties.
In the new millennium, Lloret became famous as a place where the Russian mafia invested 20 million euros, thanks to a mayor who did not really follow the law. Therefore, it is logical that there is also a Russian Orthodox church in the upper town.
The heat subsides, we walk along the beach towards a place that every visitor must visit.
Esteva Fabregas i Bari, an intellectual from Lloret, wanted to commemorate in his town the pride and sadness of all those women who were raising children and waiting for their husbands to return from the sea. His idea was accepted by the sculptor Ernest Maragalj i Noble, who escaped to Venezuela after the civil war, but in 1969 created Dona Marinera or Fisherman's Wife for Lloret de Mar. Those more inclined to artistic associations call her the Venus of Lloret. The bronze figure became the main symbol of the place, its distinguishing mark.
This sculpture can be reached via the promenade next to the beach. As evening approaches, the town turns into a beehive. There are more and more people. The last third of the way winds through the rocks to the elevation where the Fisherman's wife is waiting for the man who will not come. Her movement is at the same time hope, sadness, stoic acceptance of a bitter fate. And behind it Lloret, a place about which some write eulogies, others, more careless, complain about pickpockets.
This town opened up to us as one of the most beautiful pearls in the necklace of places between Barcelona and the border with France. Maybe also because we leave at dusk, when some bars, discotheques and casinos are just opening.
Until this afternoon in a bodega on the Catalan coast, I had never known the taste of liqueur with Catalan cream. It seems that the farewell drink served to us by the owner left a lasting impression, otherwise I would not have bought a bottle of this drink without thinking on our way out, at the airport in Girona - the only souvenir that will remind us of a hot day in Lloret on winter nights.
Bonus video:
