squirly pastries

Today's breakfast included some little squirly pastries, which I initially thought were a type of Danish pastry. They turned out to be a simple but tasty ensaïmada, which left a lingering aroma of dusted icing sugar long after they'd been eaten.

Later I noticed the same confection in shops, where they were much larger and clearly a speciality of this area. Another culinary surprise were the apparent Cornish pasties stocked in the same shops. They were actually empenadas, but the ones I've usually seen have been much smaller. Some of the ones here made Cornish pasties look small. And don't get me started on the doughnuts. Some would require two hands to lift.

I normally think of Spanish cuisine more in terms of seafood, grilled fish, paella, tapas and tortilla. Maybe the Crema Catalana would also be on the list, but that's where my Spanish pudding knowledge starts to taper away.

So then into the town, which has a large port full of fancy yachts and a cathedral which received a partial makeover from Gaudi. The cathedral is on a truly dramatic scale, with the inside draped with gold. A sculpturally interesting crown of thorns cuts across the alter, but compared with structures in Barcelona, the Gaudi influence, to me, seemed less obvious.

Instead, I found myself wondering whether the skull and crossbones on some of the graves were simply the old symbols of death, or whether when the symbol of the bones passing behind the symbol of the skull, meant a possible pirate.