Eastern Spain

Nicky:  The next morning we stayed at the campsite until check out time, making full use of the internet to try and justify the high prices of the site.  The weather was still cold, but the rain was off and on, not constant like the day before.  We headed south using the toll motorways as we know we still have a lot of distance to cover to get to the south of Spain in about 2 weeks time.  We had a nice lunch stop overlooking a Roman aqueduct bridge which we were able to access from the motorway layby, and then had a brief drive through Tarragona, a city with many Roman sights.

We continued on, stopping in the Delta de l' Ebre area for the night.  It is a major rice growing and wetland area for birds.  Neither of us had seen rice fields before, and the next morning we managed to see a flock of 15 or so pink flamingos from the side of the road.

We had a boring day of driving and reached Carcaixent just after night fall.  We had used the 'avoid tolls' function on the Tomtom this time, and the drive was 3.5 hours instead of 3 with the toll roads.  We also suddenly had a disturbing sound in the van, which was like a whirring noise (sounded like a loud bumble bee).  None of the warning lights lit up and the van was running fine, so we worried about it for a while and kept an eye on things, hoping that this wasn't the start of bad things to come.  The noise stopped a day later and it has been fine since.  We are really not sure but have put it down to the wind. We had an amazing overnight stop that night, in a motorhome aire in amongst the orange groves.  We had seen lots of oranges growing since reaching the Valencia area.  We met a friendly Danish couple, and there was also a GB and a French registered motorhomes there.  We woke to sunshine after a peaceful nights sleep in the countryside and decided to embark on 1 of 3 trails that started from the site.  I think we chose the shortest, which was still about 2 hours long.  It took us up into the hills and we had great views of the orange groves and of Carcaixent in the distance.  For once we felt safe leaving the van in the gated aire with other motorhomers around, and took advantage of being able to sight-see together.

That afternoon we put our 'Back roads Spain' guidebook to good use.  Our first stop was Xativa, 30 minutes south of where we had stayed overnight.  Dale did well finding a park on a side street, and I set off to tourist information to pick up a map.  I was lucky to get in 5 minutes before the 2pm closing for the day.  We had reluctantly decided that we would sight-see in towns separately in Spain, so that one of us is always with the van.  I town had many churches and monuments and a castle up on the hill.

  

We next went to Albaina, a small town where not a lot was happening on a Tuesday afternoon.  I had a walk to the main square and the church there, but that was really all of note.  We met up with the tourist buses in Guadalest that evening.  We climbed up into the hills, and even encountered some snow in the road verges!  Guadalest, set in the mountains, is really worth a visit, with a small but lovely old town and castle on the rock.  We each had a pleasant walk around at sunset.

The next morning we headed northeast first to Gata de Gorgos, a small town known for its shops selling basketware, bamboo furniture and a local wine.  It also had interesting Islam buildings in one part of the town.  Dale was able to pick up some maps at the information centre and we next made our way to Xabia.  I was interested in seeing some abandoned windmills, which are set along a ridge and overlook the town.  We made this our lunch stop and we had fantastic views of the town and bay.  That afternoon we bought LPG in Xabia, and made use of the launderette located in the complex.  There was also an Iceland down the road.  Iceland is a supermarket chain in the UK, which as well as stocking the basics, do a lot of frozen food as well.  Going in there was like stepping back into the UK, as the staff and customers all seemed to be English.  There was even the usual trashy UK mags for sale.

Gata de Gorgos

Xabia

We continued on this English theme by heading south past Benidorm, a hotspot for English holidaymakers and to Alicante, where we found a Primark store.  Primark is a cheap mens and womens clothes store in the UK, and they also have 17 branches in Spain.  Dale returned with 4 t shirts, underwear, 2 woollen hats and gloves for 26 euros.  It was my turn the following day when I bought some sneakers to replace my pair that had been stolen.  I hated having to buy them, as the pair I lost was in good condition and would have seen me through the trip.  As I suspected Spanish women have small feet as I couldn't fit any of the womens shoes.  I probably would have opted for the mens anyway as the womens pair was bright pink, and not the colour I was going for.  That afternoon was reasonably uneventful as we drove south for about 3 hours to a town called Agua Amarga, the beginning of another driving route in our guidebook.

Alicante

 Benidorm

Unfortunately i'll have to leave it here for the moment as the photos aren't ready past this point.

Barcelona

The weather for our one and only day in Barcelona was abysmal freezing wind and thunder storms (before everyone goes oh you should have spent more time, its so great etc, we simply can't afford $$ more) . If we hadn't already committed to the cost of the campsite we would have rescheduled. So remember some of our shoes got stolen, we don't have shoes suitable for the rain now.  Well the train dropped us at Placa Catalunya and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we both had wet feet before we left the Placa (square).  We almost caved and asked about the hop on/off buses but we plodded on. Initially in the wrong direction as the rain, umbrella and tissue paper like map were making navigating exceedingly difficult. We did eventually make it to our first stop the Casa Mila (apartment building by Antonio Gaudi) which did as promised, look pretty funky. I think it wouldn't look out of place in Star Wars and it made me a little disappointed that todays architecture isn't usually as outlandish.  We ploughed on to the Sagrada Familia, a massive cathedral designed by Gaudi and his sole project in later life.  It is pretty incredible and they have actually scaled down Gaudi's original plans so not sure what he had in mind.  It almost seems like it must have been so ahead of it's time.  As the guide books promise there was a massive queue of people waiting in the rain.  I was actually having quite a bit of difficulty looking up at it as every time I tried I'd get rain in my eyes.  The next stop was the Arc de Triomf, which was also pretty cool and happened to be the location for an electric vehicle expo which seemed to be suffering due to the weather.  We walked through the Parc de la Ciutadella (park) and over to the old town where we saw the Cathedral before taking a short break from the wind and rain at the Temple of Augustus.  Then over to the La Rambla, a main shopping street where we arrived around 2.30pm.  At this point we were back near the train station and I was feeling thoroughly miserable and fed up.  I don't think Nicky was feeling much better but she got stuck in and made us push on.  So it was down to the waterfront before a long trudge up to the Magic Fountain.  Nicky managed a purchase on the way of some "D and C" Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses to replace her stolen ones for 3 euros.  I think some of this Magic fountain area was developed for the Olympics and it was very impressive, it was the first time all day we had any sort of view and they had created a grand sight with columns, water features and major buildings.  There is a light display at the magic fountain 2 days a week during winter season, but we decided to head home as it was 1.5 hours until it started.  It was now getting late and was dark by the time we reached the train station and after dinner we spent another couple of hours outside on the internet.

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