Building Castells In The Sky

After lunch, we walked nearly a mile up a steady hill to Castell de Sant Ferran, obviously named after the beloved Sant Ferran.

Editor: You’ve never heard of Sant Ferran.

Blogger: Neither has anyone else.  It was named after King Ferdinand VI.  

Editor: How does he get a “Sant” in front of his name?

Blogger: The king gets what he wants, that’s why he’s king.

Anyhow, moving on, as we walked past the mini-forest, we were suddenly afforded striking views of the mountains by the, off in the distance to the south.  At the top of the hill, the highest point around Figueres, we had views of a long range of shortish mountains, with various villages and towns bumping right up against the mountains.

Some brief history about the Castell: The first stone was laid in December 1753.  The fort was captured by the French in the Peninsula War in 1810, back in the century when the French actually won wars.  In 1939, it was the site of the final meeting of the Republican leadership before surrendering a week later to General Francisco Franco and his Fascists.  It was then used as a concentration camp from 1940 to 1942.

We entered the driveway into the Castell, and tried to pay the admission fee.  The door was locked.  There was no sign indicating closed.  Or open.  There was short gap between the car gate and the wall, so we thought we’d walk in.  Security thought otherwise, and curtly noted that castell was closed. 

Oh.

Just on the outskirts of town.

Let me know if you don't

remember the name of the town.

A view of mountains, with a town

or two tucked up close to them.

The entry way.  Cool trees.

The dry moat.

I had read a review on TripAdvisor from a person complaining they parked in the car park and then walked all the way around the outside of the fort, which is the largest intact fort in all of Europe (at least that’s what I read.  If I’m wrong, let me know and I can delete the email you thoughtfully sent, because, like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, “I don’t care”).

So I suggested we walk around the outside of the Castell, a march which we undertook.  We weren’t trying to have the walls come tumblin’ down like Jericho (first of all, we didn’t have seven days to walk around it, blowing trumpets.  Second of all we didn’t have trumpets.  Third of all – is that actually an expression? – none of us were named Joshua).  However, another security guard must have assumed that was our plan, as he quickly told us we could not walk around the Fort in a southerly direction.

We found a path on the west side of the Castell, and walked a chunk of the way before turning around.  We were afforded fine views, and enjoyed wildflowers too.  We almost stepped in fox poop, but Jennifer spotted it in time to save us all from the ignominy of walking back to Figueres with sporting the smell of fox poop.

With still a chunk of time before our train, we decided to head back to the train station (Figueres would be pointless to visit without the Dali museum).  Walking down the main road, we got perfect views of the Egg wall part of the Dali museum and theatre.  We cut through the park, got to the train station, only to be told that the earlier train was sold out and we would have to wait.

I don't know who is the walrus,

but it turns out Dali is the egg man.

Given that we were LITERALLY (not figuratively – and I don’t care what stupid change they made to the dictionary a few years ago – “literally” literally is NOT interchangeable with “figuratively”) the only four people in our car on the train, I DON’T believe that the previous train was magically full and our train was magically five percent full.  I DO believe that the railway employee was too damn lazy to change our tickets.

Editor: You okay?

Blogger: Now that I got that out of my system, definitely feeling better!  Thanks readers for letting me vent.