To Go or Not To Go

I was supposed to be going to Avignon and indeed, I was headed that way.  But at Portbou, the last station in Spain, the train didn’t continue on as it was supposed to.  There was a railway workers’ strike in France.  I wish someone had informed me of that before I boarded the train in Figueres and saved me a trip going nowhere.

So, sitting there at Portbou’s 19^th century iron-framed train station, I had an hour and a half to consider what I was going to do.  This was to be my birthday celebration.  I could go home, grab the car keys and drive to Avignon – a trip of several hours.  Or, I could hang around locally and take myself out to lunch to a couple of restaurants that I’ve been meaning to try.  There is one only minutes from Figueres that has some Michelin stars….

Would I do what so many on Facebook recommend and keep on trying and fighting to achieve my goal?  Or would I relax and accept what fate was telling me, not fight it, and enjoy a new plan?  In the end, driving that far didn’t feel like what I wanted to do, so there was no visit to Avignon this June; no day trip to Aix-en-Provence to see the Cezanne studio, no lunch at the Guinguette on the Rhone.

Instead there was a fabulous lunch at a beautiful restaurant that I had walked by many times but never entered.  Elegant, excellent food, and a splendid view out the huge picture glass window onto the rear garden and city park beyond.  What a find!  And the next day a very good lunch at a new and elegant cerveseria/tapas bar that included one of my favorites -- tiny squid, battered and fried.  Since I don’t like beer I had an excellent local white wine.  It wasn’t what I had planned, but it too was good.  Sometimes you need a nudge to discover what’s on your doorstep.