Empuriabrava Online Blog and News

The post title says it all.

As from yesterday the water restrictions that have been in force for the Empuriabrava and surrounding region have now been lifted.

CORRECTION:

The restrictions are still in place for the Empuriabrava area but have been lifted in most other places.

First of all, if you are on holiday, or just about to arrive, then I know that you don’t want to hear this but let me tell you; we really need the rain.

You may know that we have had water restrictions here for a while - we can’t use hose pipes or fill swimming pools - but things are starting to look up.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve had quite a bit of rain and so the reservoirs are starting to fill up a bit. Not a lot, but enough to make the introduction of  real water restrictions (e.g. no water at all during certain times of the day) become an unlikely possibility. Last week in fact the restrictions were lifted but quickly reinstated after it was realised that the water levels were still too low. However, a few more days of heavy rain might just be enough to lift the restrictions for the summer and take us into the winter without worrying too much about consumption or fines.

So like I said: Rain, rain, beautiful rain!

“Hang on a minute, what’s that I said about fines?” I can hear you asking. Well I saw a leaflet that explained all about the water shortage, the restrictions and also mentioned something about fines if a household went over a certain usage level. The leaflet was multilingual but unfortunately it was a friend’s copy and I don’t have it to hand.

Where did my friend get it from? The Tourist Information Office! What’s that about? Why can you only get information about the shortage from the tourist board? Why isn’t this information being provided with our water bills?

The Redesign

Those of you who have visited Empuriabrava Online before Tuesday will have noticed that the site has undergone a major redesign, one which you hopefully like. I just thought that I’d briefly explain why I redesigned the site and things to expect in the future because I haven’t quite finished doing everything that I want to do.

Improved Navigation

The main reason behind the redesign was to improve the navigation of the website. I’ve added so many things over the past couple of years that even I was having difficulty finding what I wanted! With that in mind I set about reorganising the site so that there is a constant navigation style on every page and that all of the pages are grouped into main categories. Hopefully it is now easier to get the content that you want.

Improved Layout

The previous design felt a bit cramped. When I first created the site the thinking at the time was that everything should be “above the fold” which in web design terms meant that the user shouldn’t have to scroll too much down the page. Now we know that this doesn’t matter; that if the user wants to find the information they are happy to use the scroll button. This means that designers are now able to spread the pages out; use larger fonts and line heights where appropriate, add more images and give the content room to breath as it were. Hopefully I have achieved this with the new design.

Photos

The photo gallery used to be a set of smaller images that linked to the large photo. Now you will see that each image opens a main image window that itself allows you to view the next/previous image without having to constantly return to the photo gallery page. This use of the Lightbox javascript library has added an extra functionality to the gallery.

Advertising

The redesign has allowed more space to be used for advertising and so you will see a few more Google Ads on the page. Empuriabrava Online is a labour of love, a hobby if you like and I have to find some way to cover the costs of web hosting, domain name renewals, my time and the like.

Things to Do

As I said, the site isn’t completely finished although everything on the old site is already in the the new design but there are one or two things left to do:

1. Add a “Things to Do in Empuriabrava” section and fill it with ideas and articles such as a page on boat hire, skydiving, cycling etc.
2. Expand the bars and restaurants pages to include detailed information on places that I or readers recommend. For example, a restaurant would have a photo, address, type of cuisine, average price etc.
3. Make the main parts of the website availalbe in other languages. I’m going to start with French partly because there are thousands of French visitors to the town but mainly because my wife speaks French and can translate for me!
4. Change the look of the blog and forum to reflect the new redesign and add new sections to the forum (thanks Paloma for the suggestion).

That should keep me occupied for the next couple of months!

I would really appreciate your feedback about the new redesign and your suggestions about what other things you would like to see on the site. Please feel free to leave a comment on this post or pop over to the Website Redesign thread on the forums.

Thanks.

At long, long last the redesign of Empuriabrava Online is finished. Well sort of. There’s lots more to do and loads of things to add but the main part is done.

Tomorrow I’ll be writing a proper post about the redesign, the reasons behind it and a “to do” list but if you want to let me know what you think of it so far please add a comment below. I would also REALLY like to hear if you have found any errors or problems.

Thanks

I was just looking over my visitor statistics for the month of April and I saw that 3,368 visitors visited Empuriabrava Online of which 73% were new visitors. For a small website serving a very niche topic (one small town in Spain) this is great.
I’d just like to say thank you to all of you for coming over. I’m very near completion of the new website design and knowing that Empuriabrava Online is proving useful to so many of you makes it all worth while.

Again, thanks.

Just a reminder to everyone that Thursday 1st of May is a big holiday here in Spain and the supermarkets will be closed.

Normally in Empuriabrava most of the supermarkets are open on fiesta days but this is not the case on May Day so make sure you’re not caught out.

Have a good holiday, the weather isn’t supposed to be too bad.

The 2008 Boat Show in Empuriabrava kicked off yesterday so I thought that I’d pop down and take a few photos.

EDIT: I also popped down to the show on Monday and have added the first photo (hence the sunnier day).

The 20th Empuriabrava Boat Show (XX FIRA DEL VAIXELL D’OCASIÓ DEL PORT D’EMPURIABRAVA) starts this Saturday, 15th March 2008 and runs until Sunday 23rd March. The fair is open between 10am until 7pm and entrance for visitors is free.

You will find the boat show in the port area around the Nautic Centre.

For more information visit the Empuriabrava Boat Show website at http://firavaixell.com where there is a location map.

I have uploaded some 88 photos that I took of the carnival last Friday and Sunday.

I personally loved the chickens!

I have a new camera and I’m not too sure how to use it properly so some of the pictures leave a lot to be desired. Still, practice makes perfect.

See the photos for yourself on Flickr. 

Just a quickie to remind you that the Empuriabrava and Castelló Carnival is this weekend - 8th, 9th and 10th February. The carnival procession kicks off at 10pm on Friday outside the Náutic Centre.

More details to follow…