Platja d’Aro: Beaches and Shopping

I hate to break our lovely, little town into such narrow categories, but it's true. And I don't think anyone really minds it either. Right now, we are living in Platja d'Aro, which is on the wicked awesome Costa Brava. And it is such a tourist town. Right now there are probably as many, if not more, German, French and English speakers as there are Spanish and Catalan. And why are all these Europeans descending upon this fair city and wearing highly questionable attire? Because of this:

The Big Beach in Platja d'Aro

And this:

The little Beach in Platja d'Aro

The whole town was built, more or less, around the beaches. Apparently, thirty years ago or so there was almost nothing here. No one lived near the beaches except the fishermen, because the land wasn't good for anything. And because of pirates. No really, our Catalan friends told us that a long time ago no one would live near the water because of pirates. I'm guessing this was earlier than the twentieth century, but I don't know. Then in the seventies, when Spain started opening up again after Franco, they realized the tourist potential of their beaches and built and built and built.

This is one of three images that makes up the sidewalks. They are spiffy.

So, some details about Platja d'Aro: We are about two hours by bus north of Barcelona and about forty minutes east of Girona. We take buses anywhere we are going to go, which has limited just how much traveling we have done, because when your options are walk five minutes to the beach or sit on a hot bus with two toddlers, your choice becomes pretty easy. The town is loaded up with souvenir shops, clothing boutiques, cafes, kebab places, grocery stores, and fountains.

A note about the beaches: nude sunbathing was addressed before we came to Spain. And the answer is a huge yes. Well, kinda. There are a whole lot of women who go topless, but I've never seen anyone go completely nude. And when I say a whole lot of women, I mean it. Women from birth to near death are walking around topless on the beaches. And it is almost never sexual, I'll also add. There are moms playing with their kids, old ladies sitting around chatting with each other, and teenagers just avoiding tan lines. I'd still prefer they left them on though. But I do admire how comfortable they are with their bodies. Ninety percent of women on the beach are wearing bikinis and the majorities don't look like supermodels or anything even close sometimes. They're just enjoying the beach. I think that's nice.

Ben running in the sand and loving life

Also, an interesting thing about the beaches is that the sand is very coarse. For some reason I thought the sand would be fine, but it's not. Maybe that's just interesting to me.

The Boys playing in the fountains.

Anyway, we are leaving this little town in a week and a half, and then we'll head down to Barcelona for a few days before we fly home to the good ol' U.S. of A.! It's been an amazing summer and tons of fun, but it is always wonderful to be back in America.