Costa Brava

Wild Camping

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

A night away in the van to test how it copes with two people and three dogs
It went well and we even managed to visit both mountains and sea

We ate supper on the seafront at Blanes which was good for sea sounds and dog walking but best not to look behind to the highrise apartments and hotels. Then we found a lovely cove called Sant Francesc and slept nearby beside another white VW camper with two dogs. That made me more relaxed and the night passed quietly – unlike the first time we were road camping in the Costa Brava and in the early hours some passing youth noticed the UK plates and started to rock the van and shout at us.
Today all was peaceful and it was lovely to wander down to the sea early in the morning and before the Sunday lunch parties arrived

There were already groups of men breakfasting on wine, sausages and pa amb tomaquet!
At lunch time we moved on to the beautiful nudist beach over the hill

Here is the sea – mesmerising and soothing to us all although it was too rough for swimming

The weather forecast predicts rain from tomorrow so we were lucky to have such a sunny weekend.
Pictures of dogs in the next post.

Breast feeding

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

We saw this sign on the coast path near St Feliu de Guixols on the Costa Brava.
There was a tunnel with various viewpoints looking out at the bays

The Mirador is named for wet nurses – Dides in Catalan

A Dida was a woman who breast-fed someone else’s child. Perhaps because the mother was ill or incapable of feeding her baby.  Many women died in childbirth so the Dida was also needed to help those babies survive. Or perhaps the mother was from a social class that could afford to pay someone to take over a task which she didn’t want to do. In the days before reliable contraception it would have freed some women from an unending cycle of reproduction and feeding.
For centuries wet nursing was common all over the world and only went into decline with the advent of artificial baby milk.
Here in Catalunya some wealthy people had a Dida who lived in the house for years, feeding the babies as they arrived.  I hadn’t really thought about wet nursing before but although nowadays it seems strange or even distasteful, I can see how practical it was and perhaps a better idea than feeding babies something created in a factory. Apparently you don’t have to keep having your own babies to produce milk – if you keep feeding, the milk can be produced for years. I suppose this also protected some of the women who worked in this way from unwanted pregnancies.
I wonder why this bay was so named?