I’m not sure there is a prettier place in Europe. Aiguablava is on the Mediterranean, the east coast of Spain, just south of the border with France. Catalonia.
You might know the Costa Brava (the Brave Coast), the crowded beaches of Lloret de Mar and Tossa de Mar, the Roman ruins of Empuriabrava, the history and architecture of Girona, the majesty of the mountain setting Montserrat monastery that purportedly holds the Holy Grail. But the isolation and undeveloped beauty of Fornells, Begur and Aiguablava in the northern Costa Brava is where I go. Close to France. No crowds. Breathtaking beauty --- rocky cliffs, emerald water, mountains sloping into calm bahias.
Amy and I stay at the Hotel Aiguablava. The whitewashed hotel sits on a rugged cliff that juts out into the blue-green cove and the mountains sneak right up on the hotel. The grounds are green and flowerful and peaceful. In the late afternoon, I write about the fishing in eastern Spain. The odds and ends fish you catch in the shady rocky coves. The trout that fill the clear mountain streams. I write with the buttery garlic breath of Fornells crayfish I had for lunch. Sure, I had sweet juicy fresh cherry tomatoes and fresh bread I dipped in olive oil, and cheese we bought in a wheel from a local vendor in town that tasted smoky and creamy. Amy is in the room getting ready; we’re going to the beach this afternoon.
On the beach, we’ll see folks of all shapes and sizes, bathing suits of all cuts and types (yes, including the Speedo bikini for men, a big player on Spanish beaches). After we’re burnt to a crisp, we’ll take tapas at this bar on the beach, in the shade, with the breeze, the bar with the pa amb oli (bread with olive oil and tomatoes) and spicy chorizo sausage and the plate of assorted olives I like so much. And then I’ll catch the evening hatch on a nearby clear stream. And that’s kinda what fishing vacations are like in Spain --- a series of sun and meals and drinks, a variety of meals and drinks, broken up by a few hours angling and then back to meals and drink.
I fished one day with Bruno, after the daily Hotel Aiguablava breakfast we won’t dare miss, the Aiguablava breakfast in the windowed dining room that looks out over the Mediterranean. Bruno stands about 5-foot something, short and muscular, forty-something going on eighteen, a child-like wide-eyed view of the world, a bundle of raging electrons, never still. Impish smile. A fishing guide in warm months, a ski instructor in the cold months. We were to fish in the Segre River drainage in eastern Spain.
Heavy rain had put the main stem in spate form so we drove up the mountains, through the mountains, through a toll road and came to a tiny village where a feeder river flowed right through the heart of town. The water was too narrow, too skinny to hold any fish worth all this trouble.
I was wrong. In a big way.
The Llobregeta River. Town of Llobregeta. This feeder to the famous Segre River flowed weakly and green through town, a good fifteen feet below the street and sidewalk. I peered over the edge and looked down and I lost my breath. Trout everywhere. Everywhere.
Five across the river holding in water so shallow, two dorsals break the surface. At least four of them are in the high teens, one might be over twenty and I’m being conservative. There were dark silhouettes by the chute of water falling into the big pool where four more trout outlines finned.
Bruno and I entered below town and throughout the day and into the evening, stopping for a leisurely lunch of tapas at the only bar open in town that day, we each caught fifteen or more fish. We took turns at first, I missed more than he; we each made long casts to rising trout, sightfishing in six to twelve inches of water, long flats. The takes were explosive in the shallow water and the thick trout kicked out the fly easily in this thin water.
The longest trout I caught was in the high teens but weighed more than your usual rainbow. Girthy mean trout, rainbows and browns, all caught on dry flies. Bruno lost one trout we saw hanging in a two-foot wide run that was scary big, several pounds. He lost it when the brute shook his head and broke him off like he was a Catalonian downing a plate of paella. BTW, Bruno knows this little bar with some of the best local wine in the region.
Contacts:
Gourmetfly.com, Nick’s cell phone number, if you call from the US or from Spain, dial International code access + 33.6.83 25 8409. His email address is nick@gourmetfly.com, www.gourmetfly.com
Hotel Aiguablava, www.aiguablava.com
Costa Brava Tourism, Girona, www.costabrava.org
excerpted from my book So Many Fish, So Little Time (Harper Collins)
