I´ts been some time since my last post so I thought to pop by and tell a bit about what I´ve been up to this summer.

The summer has been quite crazy so far, and basically everything I´ve done has been without any preplanning at all.

After Dubai, I had to stay 2 weeks in quarantine at home (due to that I got the Covid virus in Dubai). It was two very productive weeks, since the virus did not affect me, neither my partner in any specific way. We were sick basically 1 -2 days and after that we were working all the days.

Empuriabrava

After the Covid quarantine we were invited to a surprise birthday party for a friend in Empuriabrava, a small town in the Costa Brava coast, north of Barcelona. We rented a cute fisherman´s house on one of the canals. Empuriabrava is known for its many canals, and a very nice thing to do there is to rent a boat for 1 hour and drive around the canals. Which we obviously did. And since the house was on the canals, we came as a surprise with the boat straight to the backyard of the house.

 

 

The fisherman´s house we rented was the second one from the left in this picture:

 

 

Not only did we rent this small boat for the canals…. We also rented a bigger boat the next day where we spend the whole day. It came with a captain so we could chill all day. It was very nice but slightly windy, I do not get seasick but unfortunately some other people on the boat got pretty bad on the way back.

 

 

The last day of this surprise weekend, we went to the casino in Peralada, which was around 30 minutes away from where we were staying. It´s a quite famous casino since it´s built inside a castle, and I have to say that I was really surprised. It´s kind of small, but very unique. I never win when playing in a casino, but I love gambling and playing games in general, but I know that it is just for entertainment – not for winning. BUT BOOM! This time I left the casino with 1000€ more in my wallet.

This is the castle and the entrance to the casino.

 

Roses & Cadaqués

After a weekend filled with champagne showers and boats, we did not have any plans with my partner. And since we already were in Costa Brava, I thought, why not check another house, and stay at least few days more. And I found a really nice house in Roses. Nobody else had the possibility to join us so it was just me, Jaume and Mamba (our dog) in a huge 3-floor house with the most spectacular sea views.

 

 

It was awesome to work in the evenings on one of the balconies / terraces, while watching the sunset.

 

 

Considering Costa Brava in general, Roses is not one of my favorite places, but when staying in a house like the one we were staying in – I could definitely not complain. Although we stayed quite a lot of the time in the pool, we did as well do some sightseeing. One of the days we drove to Cadaqués which is a super cute town in Costa Brava. I would even say it´s one of the most popular and famous towns in the whole Costa Brava coast. I´ve been there many times but whenever I am nearby, I always like to go there.

 

 

And this was our lunch spot for the day… I mean just look at those views! The restaurant is called “Talla Restaurante” and I can highly recommend it! Just remember to book in advance.

 

 

Here are few more pictures, these are from Roses and the surroundings.

 

 

This is another restaurant I can highly recommend (it´s in Roses): Els Brancs, especially for a romantic sunset dinner. They even allowed Mamba to join us although it´s a very fancy restaurant.

 

 

And this photo I just wanted to add because I like it and it´s very “summer”.

 

 

Formentera

While being in Roses, our friends asked us to join them for 1 week in Formentera. I´ve never been there and I have always heard a lot of good things about that island, so we decided to go. Formentera is one of the Balearic Islands, next to Ibiza. To get there you must first fly to Ibiza and from there continue with a ferry to Formentera, takes around 30-40 min. I totally fell in love with Formentera, what an incredibly beautiful island. To note though: the prices are quite high especially in the summer season. But was it worth the money – YES and YES!

To move around comfortably I recommend you rent a Vespa, or a car. Vespas are more comfortable though, and most of the tourists drive around with them. There´s plenty of beautiful beaches and few cute towns to visit, but the island is quite small and staying there 1 week was perfect.

 

As you can see, on some of the more crowded beaches, the parkings are packed with Vespas and motorcycles.

 

 

The sunsets are very beautiful in Formentera, and we had a rooftop on the house where we were staying, from where you could enjoy the spectacular sunsets.

 

 

The house we stayed in was located in the center of a town called La Savina, the town to where the ferry also arrives. It was a perfect location for the nights when we wanted to go out for dinner.

 

 

During the weekend we had 2 friends coming over for a short visit. An obligatory “White night out” was of course necessary.

 

 

 

We rented a boat (again), not only 1 day but 2 days (again) haha. If you visit Formentera you should definitely rent a boat, since you see the beaches and the beautiful colors of the sea from another perspective.

This was the bigger boat we rented one of the days, it actually came from Ibiza since we didn´t find any bigger boat for a “normal” price in Formentera.

 

 

This day we stopped in a beautiful beach, were you can request smaller “boat taxi” to transport you to the beach and the restaurant were we had lunch.

 

 

I wasn´t sure to explain what happened later on this day on the boat, but I have decided to do it anyways. Mom – I´m OK so no need to worry haha.

So… First my dear friend decided to fall and cut basically half of her leg open, literally, you could even see the muscle. Nothing too dangerous, but she had to go to the hospital to put stiches. 30 minutes after this happened, me myself and I fell as well. Nothing too serious happened to me neither, but I lost half a tooth in the sea (fixed it as soon as I got back to Andorra)… I was kind of in shock for a while and completely forgot I had my phone in my hand when it happened. The captain went to check, thankfully, if I had anything with me, and there it was, my phone, on 7 meters down on the seabottom. It had been there for around 20 minutes and still today it works perfect.

Not maybe the best picture but quite accurate.

 

By that story being told….. Another day we got a smaller boat, that we drove ourselves, it was also such a fun day – but this day thankfully, was without any accidents.

 

 

That day we stopped at a beach called “Cala Saona” (the one in the background of next photo) with the boat. Instead of going to the restaurant on the beach to have lunch, they actually brought us a paella to the boat. I mean look at that boss dude that brought us the paella…. Such a cool concept.

 

 

 

On the same beach, there is a 5-star hotel that has an amazing infinity pool (Cala Saona Hotel & Spa). The next day we stayed at that specific pool. It was very nice to see the same beach both from the boat and from the beach / pool.

 

 

The week in Formentera in one word: Awesome. So beautiful island, and so many cute places to visit. And the food… omg. I have never in my life ate so much paella and seafood in one week. Might probably have gained some Formentera-kilos as well haha.

 

 

Ebro Delta (Riumar)

After Formentera we came back to Andorra and spend few days there. But it didn´t take me long to start checking for houses on the coast. Since we can work from wherever, I always prefer to spend the summer on the beach.

I found this place in Ebro Delta, in a town called Riumar. Ebro Delta is the delta region of the Ebro River, in the southwest of Catalonia. Very natural and calm area. I rented a house with a swimming pool next to the beach, and that´s where I have spent the last 2 weeks. We came back to Andorra on Saturday. To be honest we did not do much, it was more about relaxing, working, playing Catan (my favourite tablegame) and of course suntanning. We spend quite a few days on the beaches nearby as well since they are completely dog friendly, actually most of the people in this area has at least one dog.

 

 

You cannot compare the sunsets in Riumar to the ones in Formentera…. But we still enjoyed watching the sun go down from the rooftop terrace or from the beach.

 

 

 

One of the days when the weather wasn´t the best, we did some sightseeing in the nearby towns (L’Ametlla de Mar & Sant Carles de la Ràpita).

 

 

Aaaaand to not break the tradition – We rented a boat as well one day in Riumar haha. A small one, for 2 hours to see the Ebro River.

 

 

That was a “short” re-cap of what I´ve been up to the last month and a half. Currently back in Andorra until further notice (already checking options on the beach though hehe). Although Andorra is very beautiful in the summer as well…. Let´s see where August month will bring me, I´m kind of indecisive.

Let´s end the blogpost with this photo that I took this morning, it´s a beautiful church next to home that I always pass by when I take out Mamba for a walk.