Vic to Viladrau and the Montseny Hills

Zagan the motorhome’s a little perturbed at the quality of free aires being laid at his rubbery feet in Catalunya. He’s in a flat spot surrounded by the forested Montseny hills, on the edge of the village of Viladrau (N41.84532 E2.38756). Cost to stay here: once again zilch. Cost of services: zilch.

Viladrau motorhome aire. Only us and one other (empty-looking) van left on a Sunday evening in November

Vic’s market takes place twice a week in the gravelled square we stood and soaked the sun in on Friday: once on a Wednesday and once on Saturday. We decided to make use of the Vic’s free aire for another day so we could go see it, although quite what we expected to find I don’t know. Markets across Europe seem pretty much homogenised with the same shipping containers of Chinese imports being shared about between ’em. Some are more interesting than others, but Vic’s market was fairly standard, despite the fabulous placement in Vic’s timeless old square.

That said, there was certainly a highlight to the place for me. One of the stalls, in fact three joined together, sold old black and white photos of the town. Like the flattened memories of a well-lived local, images of the past were laid out with small descriptions in Catalan, amidst ‘no taking photos of our photos’ signs (fair enough). No prices were shown. We pored over them twice, taking in startling scenes. Two men being garrotted on a wooden raised structure, for crimes unknown, both appeared shockingly dead while faces in the foreground turned to look at the cameraman, their eyes appearing blank. Children raising roman salutes during a visit from Franco. The town’s Cathedral before and after being deliberately gutted by fire in the civil war. Religious books and paintings being burned in a huge pile, pretty much on the spot we stood on. German soldiers stood around box cars at Vic train station during WW2, which seemed quite wrong, since Spain remained neutral in that conflict? I looked around at the more elderly faces, which took on a craggy and worn appearance as if these were each of their memories we were squinting at.

Vic’s cathedral: so black inside it looked freshly burned.

More prosaic pictures filled the gaps: of floods and old bridges, men scraping animal skins in the tanneries, scenes from dirtier and more fascinating markets 100 years ago, and finally a shot of the market square dug entirely open to pop in an underground car park, which we realised was under our feet.

To one side of the square mushrooms were being sold, apparently by folks who’d recently foraged for them and were slicing the muddied ends clean and plating them up there and then. Locals stood around and eyeballed the plates, each of which looked identical to us, before waving a hand over the one they’d picked out. The mushrooms looked like nothing I’d seen before, orange and poisonous. As we watched, trying to build the courage to photograph, a scoop full of snails slid into a black string bag for a punter who looked as amused by his purchase as we were.

Amid the usual cluster of clothes stalls, Ju was pleased to find past memory of ‘huge pants’ being sold in Spanish markets was still valid as we came across some of the biggest, beigeist holder-inners you’ve ever seen. A beggar or two worked the edges of the market, being roundly ignored by the locals. A lady in front of me appeared taken aback when she finally worked out the chap holding his hand out wanted her money.

It was probably a mistake to stay in Vic after we’d walked the market, we got bored, but the parking spot was pretty fab, and Ju wanted to make use of the laundrette she’d spotted in town. Open less than a week, the brand new self-service place was patrolled by a lass who spoke English, and explained the machines needed no washing liquid, and the place was open until 10pm. Ju hauled our washing bag down there while I walked Charlie around the town’s impressive array of athletics, football, rugby, BMX and baseball facilities. Vic’s clearly not in need of wonga.

Which reminds me. I forgot to add in the last blog that the signs of Catalan independence are everywhere here at the moment. Flags are hung from half the balconies, and an electronic sign in the Vic square showed 0 hours, 0 days and 0 minutes left to the region’s vote for independence from Spain. Huh? We looked it up. It seems that even though Madrid’s refused a referendum, Catalunya held one anyway. The result: a majority of folks here want separation from the rest of Spain. Incredibly the region’s now pushing to become a separate country, which among other things means it will raise its own army. Madrid has pointed out this is illegal according to the country’s post-Franco constitution, but they’re pushing on anyway. What next I wonder?

After an afternoon’s sitting about achieving not much, and watching a terrible film called Iron Sky (avoid, avoid!), we were up and at ’em to head along the again-empty motorway and a short stretch of the less-dreaded white road to get here, Viladrau. The promise of free WiFi lured us, plus the fact it’s Sunday and we expect our freebie Costal Brava coastal aire to be packed with locals today. The WiFi is absent, but the aire’s very pleasant and the town’s surrounded by walks into the wooded hillsides around us.

Charlie’s now stretched out snoring after a 6km wooded wander, passing groups of locals who greeted us, smiling, in both Spanish and Catalan: “Hola, Bon Dia”. Ju’s working through final edits on a video we’ve produced (work, not blog stuff). The Spanish vans are leaving one by one, in fact only a white battered rat-van’s left, parked in front of a trailer despite having no tow bar. A dog’s barking in the distance (of course it is, this is still Spain!). The moon’s rising in a slate-grey sky behind me and the temperature is slowly falling, although it’s still 17 degrees in here and reports are coming in from home of scattered snow.

Pyrenees to our north: looking a wee bit snowy themselves today

Viladrau Square: menu del dia to be had for €9.50 in a side cafe

Haunting photos on a grave in Viladrau: take your life and squeeze it dry while you can folks

Oh, one last thing. The name for a dog in Spanish is ‘perro’, with the r’s rolled across the top of the mouth. In Catalan though, it’s ‘gosso’. Charlie is very confused as I’ve taken to calling him El Gosso, which to me sounds quite regal?

Cheers, Jay