Puddles of bird baths. Sun warming my back. Walking fast to get warm. The setting sun brightens the buildings along the beach of San Feliu, turning the windows into pools of fire. Light dances on the ripples and wavelets of the ancient sea.
Fishing boats line the beach with nets drying in the winter sun as they had for untold generations.
Gulls glide lazily as if they have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Old men, smoking and drinking wine, chat in animated tones with hands describing their words as if to draw their words in the afternoon air. Their faces, bronzed and creased by weather and age, display the emotions of their hands with eyes and mouths accentuating their conversation. Gerona Cars everywhere on the narrow streets of a city built of stone a millennia or more ago. New buildings rise from the ancient streets, home to the glittering upscale shops selling designer clothing, wonderful pastries, chocolates, leather goods, computers, all the trappings of a burgeoning economy.