Carcasonne to Barcelona

We started the next day with Carcasonne which has a medieval walled city before heading south to see the Cathar castles, however we only just made it in time to see one from a distance and will be going into another tomorrow. This part of France is sparsely populated, the driving times are long due to road conditions and the shorter daylight hours are all making it much harder to get things done at the moment but we're making the best of it.

Unfortunately the wind blow up really bad overnight and in the morning we were really unsure what to do. I wasn't sure it was safe to drive and didn't feel confident to drive or walk up to the castle.  So we tried to wait and see if things would improve, they didn't. We decided to just get out of there and drive down to the coast in the hope things might be a little better.  The wind was still just as severe but at least on the coast it didn't bring rain and the temperature was nicer.  We went to Collioure which is popular with tourists and there was definitely much more buzz about the place.  We happened across some sort of paddle boarding race in the harbour which was cool.  The continued to be fierce through the night but we had parked up in such a way to let another squeeze in next to us and when we got back we found someone had done exactly that.  This would usually be a bit close for comfort but they were a very effective windbreak, so they got to rock and roll all night.  When they left in the morning we realised what a blessing it had been.

The third continuous day of unabated gales was at least sunny, we drove around the peninsula which was slow going but took by some nice scenery.  We visited Cadaques which is like a traditional fishing village.  It was very attractive and although very difficult due to narrow and steep roads we ended up driving around.  Later in the afternoon we checked out Empuriabrava which was a recently built resort with canals constructed in a wetland (which being wetland destruction i'd usually dislike) which was very funky to see.
Mercifully in the morning the wind had eased to just strong.  Our plan on this day was to get to Scotts place (Scott is a Kiwi that we met in the street in Billund, Denmark) which is in the countryside outside Girona.  We visited a lake on the way and we saw some seaplanes which was interesting. Scott has just moved into a mobile home that he has put on a 5 acre section he bought.  The section has two ruined stone buildings on it, quite a few trees and has a slope to it. We spent a fun couple of days at Scotts, he generously helped us with a few things: borrowed a battery charger, took us round places to find a tyre and car alarm places, and lent me a ladder which allowed me to scrub the roof of the van which was in a sorry state.  We also managed a walk around the old town of Girona with Scott as our tour guide.  We walked up to the town walls and got great views of the attractive city.  We also learnt a lot more about Scott's job as a pilot.

Cadaques

Girona

We drove back to the coast and we visited a resort town called Tossa de Mar which we both thought was pretty nice.  It had a walled old town, the remains of a Roman Villa complex and an excellent beach (the sort of place that must teem with people in season but currently feels very sleepy). Then we ran down the coast to El Masnou to the (extortionately priced 37.50/night) 2 star campsite that would be our base for visiting Barcelona. Unfortunately our first choice Camping Barcelona which is actually further away along the coast closed for the season at the end of October so we were 2 weeks too late.  Unfortunately because our WIFI booster was stolen in our latest break in we had to use the campsite Wifi outside the office rather then from the comfort of our van (as the signal did not reach as far as our pitch) so we spent a very cold couple of hours enjoying decent download speeds.

Tossa de Mar