SEVILLA

Just right after almost 8 years I visit Sevilla again. As I lived over there for a short period of time and this has been the first place I visited in Spain, I managed to make quite a lot of memories. During all these years city has changed quite a lot as well as me, lets see what is going to go on this time. As my cousin is there for studies these months, I will have a very good company.

Andalusian people are always on a wave. Festas (celebrations) are happening not almost all the weekends, but quite recent also in working days. I got nice surprise in the first evening, parade celebrating some religious event. Native people are completely into it with all their feelings. For me is quite surprising how different is a culture in different parts of one country.

Heat for sure is already here, 39 gr. C in shadow, quite big heat.. So to feel a bit fresh during all the long day, there are some new instillations in the city. Refreshing water on the streets and textile roofs on the streets.

I had one obligatory object to visit Real Alcazar,  spent some 5 hours walking in the premises. Very beautiful architecture and amazing parks.

Night life is very active all week long. Flameco is a very big part of Andalusian culture and flamenco performances are really authentic, heat, the music, dance and passion for that inside of people doing that. All the atmosphere was just like it is more than real making unreal sensation in the same time.

Metrapol Parasol - the largest world's wooden construction. Waiting the when the night comes on it's roof and counting the towers of churches just lightening up makes me feel again life is magic.

One of the benches presenting one of  Spain's cities in Placa Espanya. Very nice surroundings, especially park Maria Luisa.

Sevilla is one of the most romantic cities in Europe, the air is full of vibrations of passion and well being feelings. Just taking a ride along the city makes the trip even more special. I did not do it, was walking a lot up and down in the day and night, enjoying the hot breeze of air and the special smell of Sevilla of orang trees flowers. The city is crossed by river Guagalquivir therefore the bridges over it makes the city even more special. I found people very friendly and opened and living in a very big contact with their culture keeping their traditions alive. Being very religious people are gathering a lot, even more than in more northern part of a country. 

THE EBRE DELTA

Visiting the very special places in Catalonia, this time turn is for Ebro Delta – beautiful and magic place just before the Catalonia's borderline with Spain.
The picture above reveals that nature has done in last 4000 years. The river Ebro bringing the sand towards the see has made wetland are approx. 320 square kilometres. 






The walk near the river brings me back in my memories to Latvia and Norway where are plenty of rivers and life around them.



Beautiful wetlands where are plenty of birds having a break of a long flying from Norther countries to Africa to overwinter.



Rice plantations just getting prepared for planting the rise. This is a perfect place for rice agriculture. Nearby  is the huge factory to get it overworked.

CASTANYADA

This year we were making panellets - any kind of marzipan cookies, that is the main desert in Castanyada festival. As one of my biggest passions is cooking, experimenting and creating dishes, so I am very happy to find out how to make panallets. I have assistant Nuria who is loves to help in cooking process. So first we make a paste of almonds, sugar, boiled potato and spices, then small balls, which we roll in egg white and then nuts or cocoa or dry fruits. The good things here is that you can use all your fantasy as much as you want and to create any kind of panallets. Then we smear them with yolk and put in oven for 5 -10 min.

Tasty, tasty, tasy. I was happy to receive so many compliments, especially making them for a first time.

The most popular panellets are the ones covered with pine nuts. Panellets usually are eaten together with sweet vine Moscatell or any other one.

Castanyada is one of the most popular Catalan festivals, and it is celebrated on All Saint's Day. The roots of this tradition are found already in end of 18th century and there are several explications about it. This time a big imporance is for food eaten during the festival - panellets, sweet potato, roasted chestnuts and sweet vine. There is also story about castanyera - an old lady who is dressed in peasant's clothes and wearing a heads craft, she is roasting chestnuts on the street and then selling them rapped in a paper of newspaper. Usually around this time is a little bit cold outside, so this makes hot chestnut sale on the streets really attractive. Usually castanyada is celebrated with friends or family having a meal together and roasting chestnuts and having nice talk and commemoration of people who have passed by. Festival also signify autumn entry. Children are very amazed of this event and it is widely celebrated in kindergartens and schools.

CAMPING IN CAMPRODON

This year my husband Pol got in his birthday fantastic present - red camping tent. Congratulations Pol in your birthday !!! You are amazing and I love you with all my heart. So let's go out to celebrate, this time in nature in Camprodon - a small inland town of Catalunya. Taking in account that autumn is here, we enjoy amazingly beautiful landscape views. As this is almost the end of camping seson the majority of campings are closed for winter time. We are lucky to have one and beside very good. For me it is a discovery, as I do it first time in Catalunya. I was really amazed how good everything was organized in a camping we overnight. So many families use campings as a summer holiday place, that seemsed quite strange for me by the way. People were very kind and talkative, so very nice atmosphere. There were also small shop and very cozy restaurant, though we could have a very nice dinner. Everybody happy, night comes, brrrrrrrr, starts to be very, very cold, in the evening temperature dropped quite a lot and in a middle of a night to 0 gr.C. As I am from north, just love this adventure. The sky and the stars were extremely beautiful that night, so vivid and wide, mountains around and peace of night. The huge contact with nature and purity - great.

Next day we make a small trip to a town called Camprodon. I love to see how much Nuria loves nature. On a way we pick up blackberries and they were so tasty, mmmmmmm, and we pass cooky factory Birba. So this is the place where biscuits Nuria come from. Camprodon is a very small inland town, but is has it's own charm, here has had borned very famous composer Albeniz, we visit his museum, I got really amazed of his story.

Feeding ducks is always a part of Nurias adventures. I enjoy seeing kids so happy giving bread to the birds and ducks even more happy. Such a perfect day. Autumn smell is in the air, some colorful leaves in the trees or falling , happy people, peace all around, laughter of children, nice.

For the full happiness of Nuria in the camping also was a small farm and among so many animals there were two ponies also available for a ride. So this was a moment of a day for my daughter.

Another fantastic weekend is over. Conclusion is clear - I really like camping.

FREIXENET

Here we are in the world of bubbles,called Freixenet. The story of this cava producing place is very long and complicate and all the numbers are really impressive, I mean numbers about volume of production and part of market all over the world.

http://www.freixenet.es/default.asp?lang=3

It's is worth to see it.

Let's go to see what happens in basements 35 m under.

Untouched bottles from 1982.

Living in Catalunya I have learned a lot not only about wines but also about cava, and honestly I have never drank so much cava before as living here. It is a part of culture which you can not resist.

WORLD OF WINE OF PERE OLIVELLA

Another season of grape harvest is here. This time we are visiting one of wineries in our neighbourood Penedès called Pere Olivella Galimany. By the way whire grapeaps are always picked up first and then the red ones. Picking up of grapes starts in the begining of September and can finish in November for the late sorts. The hostess of winery is very hospital showing us all the cellars and explaining the process of making wine and cava (that they they mainly produce). So let's see that happens behind this door after picking up the grapes in all those huge fields around.



In these huge tanks is captured the juice of grapes in order cool the juice down to 16 gr. C and to add all the necessary components to make good wine or cava. That takes only one day, afterwards it gets filled in the bottles and brought down in the cellar. Depending of the kind of wine or cava follows its life down in the cellar. The cellar is created in a way not only to be used for storage of bottles but also as guide in a world of wine, allowing us to see some antic tools and unique collection of bottles of wine and cava. The oldest which I saw was from the beginning of 19th century. As this winery is 152 years old and is a business of a family, we could hear an interesting histories how has been developed the techniques of producing wine. Now is the 5th generation which is taking care of this winery.







Every box has a label with the description of wine on it and when it is going to be ready to follow it's way. The every bottle gets it's label and gets packed in boxes. 30 % of bottles produced in this winery get exported. Our visits ends with tasting some cava and buying some bottles of wine to know better this winery. I got a lot of positive emotions as this infinite world of wine and cava is a huge discovery and makes me feel more closer to the nature.