Sant Cugat del Valles
This is the town I was based in while living in Catalunya for the first few months. I was with different host families and got moved against my will, but it was here that my first (and favourite) host family lived. It's a really expensive area within the whole of Spain, and I never could have afforded to be there on my own dime, so I was very lucky to have been able to stay. But again, it's less the place, and more the people. That first host family really welcomed me like I was one of their own and it never felt transactional. We went on holiday together to the Costa Brava, and to the southern end of France twice. I was still reeling from a breakup a few months earlier and they helped me start putting my life back together, even though I still very much don't know what I'm doing. Here's an image of the main square, with the monastery front and centre, and the restaurant they took me to eat at on my first night in the country just out of site behind the trees on the left.
