Ansó, 28 April
by Isabel Isherwood - 14:45 on 02 May 2017
April has been a busy month – we’ve had visit from the Nager/Jones family from Glasgow, Heffernans from Ulverston, and my parents, as well as a trip to the Mediterranean and a few days with Jake’s dad. We’ve managed to combine a couple more days of skiing with beaches, sea swimming, walking and searching out some magnificent Mediterranean and Pyrenean flowers.
Our coast trip was fabulous. We were lucky in many ways – the temperature suddently shot up, the strong tramontana winds that the area is renowned for didn’t blow, and we quite by accident organised our holiday in such a way that we were leaving the beautiful Cap de Creus peninsula as the holiday crowds were arriving. We stayed in a little white-washed villa with a huge garden on the edge of Cadaques, with climbing trees and rope swings that delighted the girls, and a ‘tropical’ feel that reminded us rather unspecifically of little beachside cabins we've stayed in in the Philippines or Indonesia or ….somewhere…..
Jake and Iona swam every day (I am too much of a softie to swim this early in the year, and Rowan has a fear of Lurking Things in deep water so was happier playing in the shallows). Iona got rather excited about snorkelling, except not with a snorkel – so really just looking at the seafloor through swimming goggles!
Rowan and I poked in rockpools and saw the most glorious snakelocks anemones and tiny dark red sea urchins, as well as an enormous red-brown octopus. We walked to remote beaches and I managed a walk right across the peninsula from Cadaques to Port de la Selva.
The Cap de Creus peninsula was evidently very intensively cultivated in the past, and almost all accessible ground is terraced, the terraces separated and supported by drystone walls. Some are still cultivated, with more accessible areas mainly planted with olive trees, but the vast majority of the terraces are long abandoned. At this time of year, after the winter rains and before the baking heat of summer, they are brilliant with flowers – a riot of purple lavender, pink and white cistus, acid green euphorbia, yellow broom, and the tall starry spikes of asphodel – like out-of-control herbaceous borders.
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