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Thursday 19 April 2012

19th Apr BARCELONA - SANT FELIU DE GUIXOLS

We paid our 90 for 3 days parking in a lorry park and set off for an aire we had read about, on the internet, at Sant Feliu de Guixols. We directed Sat Nav to go via a campervan accessory shop (hoping to buy a replacement water filler cap); so we’re driving along a motorway and she says “arriving a destination on right” – huh! we could see it but we couldn’t get to it, there was no slip road! We made our own way to the shop and .................. they didn’t sell accessories (typical), just campervans and caravans.

We continued our journey, back onto the dual carriage way, and for about a five mile stretch, at regular intervals, there were prostitutes!! (we must have seen at least twenty). Some were standing and posing at the side of the road, while others had fold up chairs to sit on (occasionally there would be an empty chair, perhaps she had a client?). They looked very young, perhaps fourteen/fifteen to eighteen, plus one who looked about fifty, but they didn’t look Spanish – we guessed Eastern Bloc; it was really sad, what an awful existence, perhaps they felt it was better than begging, who knows? Why there? How many men would be driving that stretch of road, at lunchtime, wanting a prostitute? Very strange.
Sant Feliu de Guixols is a pretty little seaside town with a harbour, the aire is about ½ mile from the beach.
Boats at Sant Feliu de Guixols
I'm starting to like the look of pollarded trees!!
Yet another lovely shabby exterior
The weather had improved; blue sky and sunshine; so we had a relaxing afternoon, just a gentle stroll around the sea front, nothing too strenuous. But this evening we had a real downpour, just like home!

18th Apr BARCELONA

It rained in the night and we woke up to a miserable grey day. However we got out our bikes and cycled back to Passeig de Gracia, in the rain, and paid our entrance fee, 18.15 each, for Casa Batllo; another Gaudi work of art.
Casa Batllo
The house is just awesome; there are no straight lines, doorways and windows are all curved
 with fabulous kiln formed glass a feature of many.
This glass is above a screen that divides the room
The windows at the front that lead onto the amazing balconies
Close up of the kiln formed glass in the front windows
Unfortunately our photos don’t do justice to the colours of the glass or the mosaics; the light was wrong, too grey.
Look at the shape of the ceiling
By now we had had enough of looking at stuff, so rather than doing another museum (we had meant to do the Picasso museum) we went back to Barri Gotic area and walked into more of the side streets.
These lovely chanderliers are at the entrances to some of the shops
There’re an awful lot of beggars in Barcelona; many are middle aged females who are holding up a photo of young children; they are practically always bare foot (but you can see their shoes under their skirts if you look carefully) and they look like immigrants (from Rumania or Poland?).
When we got back to the van we were absolutely shattered; three, nine hour, days of sightseeing, together with an eight – ten mile cycle ride each day is exhausting.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

17th Apr BARCELONA

We have had an absolutely fabulous day!!! We used the bikes to take us into the centre of the city (until the cycle path stopped close to the Sagrada Familia); we could see the towers of the cathedral soaring above all the other buildings, so it was quite easy to find – which is good as we’ve sacked Sat Nav for the time being. The queue for tickets was around two sides of the building, and it’s a big building, but we joined it anyway as we wanted to see inside. The outside is fantastical; the tall slender towers look like melted candles with birds and reptiles and fruit adorning them, it’s just incredible, fabulous - I love it (apparently some people despise it). The queue moved quite quickly so we were only waiting for about 20 minutes and there was lots to look at while we waited (and shuffled forward). When we bought our tickets (16 each) we were told that we would have to wait for 1 ½ hours before we could go up the tower (Brett really wanted to, so I had agreed to go up), so we were hoping that there would be enough to occupy us for that long. Inside was “wow” so much coloured light – stained glass windows everywhere. I was in my element, I took so many photos (and bought a book on the glass); Gaudi didn’t design the glass, the artist was Joan Vila- Grau. The windows are abstract, not figurative, and there’s no painting on them – just coloured glass and lead. There is some wording on some of the windows, I don’t know if that’s paint (obviously I couldn’t get near enough to see!).



There was masses to do for our 1 ½ hours, there’s a museum with models and sketches and, as the building is still being built, there are workshops where you can see current models being made. When we were standing in the queue for the lift I read a notice which said that the lift took visitors up the tower but that you had to walk down spiral stairways to get back down and that if you suffered from dizziness or vertigo (yes to both) it wasn’t advisable to go up! I said to Brett “you’d have thought that they would tell you that on the website wouldn’t you?” and he said “they did” ??? “you didn’t tell me that”, “well you wouldn’t have come up if I had” !!!!! So we got in the lift and it went up and up and up and up ..... it was a long way up. When we got out it was scary (it was a long way down). The views were out of this world, you could see right over the tops of all the other buildings to the sea.
It's an awfully long way down!
Then we had to walk across the bridge between two of the towers – that was really, really scary – my knees went wobbly. From up there you got fantastic close ups of the outside of the building.
From below these look like coloured blobs, you can't see they're mosaics
Going down was not nice, it was literally walking down stairs spiralling to the left for an awfully long way – but I survived to tell the tale, though I probably wouldn’t have gone up if I’d known I would have to walk down (but I’m glad I did, now I’m down!).
Right at the top, between the two towers is the bridge we walked across - it's very high up!
We got back on the bikes to travel to our next destination the Barri Gotic area, via Passeig de Gracia where we left the bikes (as by now it was exceedingly busy with traffic and people and no cycle paths) and where we saw more fabulous Guadi buildings, with very long queues outside (we might go back tomorrow, we had queued enough today).
Fabulous ironwork door (spot me & Brett)

I want to see these windows from the inside
Barri Gotic is the Gothic area; the main street, Las Ramblas is very touristy with lots of ‘tat’ for sale and people dressed up as statues (and not moving) or (bizarrely) dressed and acting like lizards, but with stilts on so they were very tall, trying to make all the young girl tourists squeal! Leading off Las Ramblas is a maze of dark, narrow, windy streets with tall buildings;
In real life these alleyways feel really narrow and are very dark
There are all kinds of independent shops here – tattoo artists, leather goods, galleries, clothes designers, hippy shops, all very interesting.
This painted window was in a bakers, it's 1920's

By now we’d been on our feet for about seven hours so decided to have a drink at one of the cafes in this pretty square we came upon;
'Fleece the tourists' square!
We ordered two beers, they were served in what can only be described as very large wine glasses (must have been ½ litre) and cost 6.95 EACH!!! We got our money’s worth; we sat there for nearly ¾ hour, nursing out beers, watching young men tumbling and standing on one another’s shoulders and stuff (they were very good). By then we were all ‘touristed’ out (no staying power), so it was back to the van by 7.30 p.m. without any biking accidents this time.

Monday 16 April 2012

16th Apr TARRAGONA – BARCELONA

A nice easy drive to the aire in Barcelona, Sat Nav did really well. On the way I spotted this bright blue flower on the verge – it was Borage; I mention it as it’s one of my favourite herbs (I freeze the flowers in ice cubes to serve in drinks in the summer).

The aire is literally a lorry park with an area for campervans, the main appeal is that it’s got 24 hour security which means all our possessions are safe whilst we’re out and about doing our touristy bit – Barcelona has a  bit of a reputation for thieving (pick pockets, muggers etc); which is why Brett is wearing a money belt and I’m not allowed to carry my bag! The aire is not cheap 30 for 24 hours and we’re planning on staying for three days, as there’s so much we want to see, but it’s worth it for peace of mind.
We arrived at midday and had a quick lunch. Brett had read that Barcelona had good cycle paths and cycling was an easy way to travel around the city. As we didn’t have a map we took Sat Nav with us; we asked her to take us to Park Guell, she said it was 3.8 miles away – of course it was up hill, after about 3 miles the cycle lanes had disappeared, so we locked the bikes up and continued by foot – I had the brilliant idea to get Sat Nav to remember where the bikes were parked. We walked and walked (uphill) for another mile or so, not knowing if we were going the right way – it’s very badly signposted, probably because most people travel by COACH or BUS (not bike/foot, as it’s not close to the city centre). Anyway we arrived, me hot, sweaty, tired and bad tempered!!!

There were lots and lots of tourists, coach loads in fact! The place was surreal, fabulous, inspiring, weird, wonderful, and unbelievable – we took loads of photos.
Fantastic columns holding up walkways
These look like 'Gingerbread Houses'
Mosaics everywhere
Even in the ceilings

Close up of ceiling
And around windows

I even managed to find some glass! but it didn't photo well
When we left we asked Sat Nav to take us back to our bikes, as we left the park by a different entrance to the one we came in – it’s actually quite hard to use a Sat Nav while walking, it doesn’t respond very quickly and for some reason our one keeps getting lost and spinning round and round in circles. After ½ an hour or so we finally made it to where she said our bikes were – it wasn’t where we had left our bikes!!!!!! She’d taken us to the wrong bloody place, but there on her screen (about a mile away) was written ‘Bikes’...... we finally we found our bikes (phew); and now all the cycle paths were down hill which was much easier – until this stupid bloody pedestrian stepped onto the cycle lane (without looking) in front of me, right in my path – Brett was really impressed that I didn’t fall off (he said I would have a few months ago!) or completely run over him, we only bashed arms, I honestly couldn’t avoid him any more than that and he didn’t even apologise.
Tomorrow we’re going to the Cathedral ‘Sagrada Familia’; Brett says we’re going to go up the towers – I’m going to wait and see what they look like close up – he says he’s not asking me to climb stairs, there is a lift ............ yes, and then you have to walk across abridge (500’ up in the air) to the next tower to get down!

15th Apr CARRETERA PLATJA LLARGA (TARRAGONA)

The view from our bed!

Helen (my very good friend from Glass School) arrived in Spain yesterday; after swopping texts, this morning, it turns out she is exactly where we were this time last week – bad timing or what, it would have been fantastic to see her.
The weather has improved a bit, it got quite warm this afternoon, but it rained again this evening. There was a fabulous stormy sky tonight, all black and red.


We’re leaving here early tomorrow so that we get to Barcelona by lunch time. Having made a point of avoiding being there for the weekend we now find out (from reading our ‘Rough Guide to Spain’ book) that many of the attractions are closed on a Monday!! But Guell Park (designed by Antonio Gaudi) will be open, so we’re going to spend the afternoon there – I’m so excited.

14th Apr CAMPSITE - CARRETERA PLATJA LLARGA (TARRAGONA)

The weather hasn’t improved overnight; still cold and grey – the estate agents in Castelo Branco said they often got rain in April so maybe this is it. After a bit of shopping, so we’ve got supplies for the weekend (1 litre wine .79!), it was back to the wildcamping site. Despite the weather there were lots of people in the sea (in wet suits) canoeing and surfboarding.

We had a lazy day; with, a bit of reading, short walks between showers, planning our trip to Barcelona and then our tour of France.
I hate to say this but today was a little bit boring, I hope I’m not get bored with travelling already – I’m really looking forward to buying ‘Donkey Quinta’ and realising all our plans. I don't think the weather helps either.


13th Apr TARRAGONA (Campsite)

Another grey day and it rained a lot in the night too. So we decided, as we’ve been wildcamping for a few days, to go to a campsite to get everything charged up, empty waste water and fill up with drinking water etc.
Whilst in Portugal the shabbier looking campsites were the ones we liked the best; they tended to be the cheapest (and we like cheap), they also have the over winterers who have lots of tips and good advice to share. So we headed for a campsite called “Don Quixote Camping”, from the road it looked like a shanty town! We asked the price, the man said “Si, good price, not expensive” and walked in front of the van gesticulating for us to follow and then showed us where to park; Brett asked again, “how much?” the man thought for a bit and then said “22” - 22?? We’ve never paid that much for a campsite before, not even in Britain, so we left. The next campsite wanted to charge us 27!!! So now we’re at the ‘cheap’ campsite of 19, and that doesn’t include internet, they wanted an extra 5€ for that; so basically it’s costing us 19€ for an electric hook up – we can get water and dispose of our waste at aires for free. I’m not happy, I thought camping was a cheap option; oh yes, and they charge extra for each person so a family of four would pay 25€. Brett says I should forget about it, it’s done now – but it’s praying on my mind!!!! What a waste of money, it makes the 12€ one, which I moaned about on the Algarve, now seem really cheap.

The showers here are crap too; you have to push a button to get the water to come out, it only lasts for about 20 seconds or so, then you have to push it again. AND there’s nowhere to put your clothes and towels to stop them getting wet, fortunately I had a plastic bag with me but my shoes got wet – bloody stupid, expensive campsite!!!!
We’re only a few hundred meters along the beach from where we were wildcamping, where we had a fabulous pitch right on the beach; but here, if we wanted have a ‘premier’ pitch (with a view of the sea), it would cost more, of course, an extra 3€. We’re going back to wildcamping tomorrow.


12th Apr CARRETERA PLATJA LLARGA (TARRAGONA)

We woke up to a cold, grey day so decided on day of sightseeing in Tarragona; Tarragona has a lot of history, with impressive Roman remains (including an amphitheatre and aqueduct) and a medieval town. The first problem was getting there; it was only 3 – 4 miles from where we were camping so cycling was the obvious solution, except it was 3 – 4 miles along a busy road. Brett and I haven’t had many disagreements whilst we’ve been travelling and when we do they’re often because I won’t cycle somewhere (like today!). I got my first bike when I was 21, and haven’t got the confidence of someone who learnt to ride as a child – I don’t like busy roads or cycling through pedestrians, I’m not good at starting off or stopping (or steering for that matter!), basically I like quiet country roads – Brett can’t understand my reluctance, especially when driving isn’t an easy option, he thinks I should face my fears.

I admit that the drive into and through Tarragona was a nightmare, and yes, I do feel guilty – but we managed to park and armed with Sat Nav walked into town, of course we arrived at siesta time and most shops were shut.
Beautiful pebble mosaic pavements
 After lunch we made our way to the first place we wanted to visit, a merchant’s house with a Roman courtyard
Merchant's house
 it was 3.15 entrance fee which was fine until we realised that if we bought a day ticket for 10.50€ that would give us entrance to all the attractions we wanted to visit – unfortunately we hadn’t given ourselves enough time to do everything today (and use the day ticket to full advantage) so we’ve decided to return within the next couple of days (at least we know where to park and how to get there now!); hopefully the weather will have improved too.
While we were there we did take a few pictures of doors and their furniture.
All the doorways were special

Again just a door to a house


Beautiful

in an 'ugly' kind of way

This door is only about 4' high

And I just loved the way these bollards had been hand painted.


The amphitheatre






11th Apr MORELLA - CARRETERA PLATJA LLARGA (TARRAGONA)

We left Morella this morning and headed for another inland aire at Asco; we would have stayed another day in Morella but we hadn’t got much in the way of food and we didn’t find a shop yesterday. The drive was lovely fabulous views that seemed to stretch to the edges of the earth, you could see for miles in every direction; unfortunately there was nowhere to stop to take photos. On the down side, this is the area where they raise animals for food; don’t ask what animals as all that’s visible is huge sheds with feed hoppers along side, piles of manure and then you get the occasional whiff of ‘caged’ animals.

We arrived in Asco at 1.45 p.m. and looked for somewhere to buy food – everywhere was shut (siesta time) and wouldn’t be open until 5.00 p.m. (we still haven’t got to grips with siesta time!). As we were walking through the town there was a loud warning siren, followed by this lady making an announcement (in Spanish) from loudspeakers mounted on lamp posts along the road – there was no one around to react and we had no idea what she said (so we ignored it). We continued walking and found a sign post showing the way to various parts of the town – the scariest one being directions to the nuclear power station!!!!! We had seen these huge cooling towers, alongside the beautiful river, pumping out steam, (just like in The Simpsons) but hadn’t taken much notice – however putting this together with the ‘early warning system’ announcement (probably wasn’t, but we weren’t going to take chances) we decided to leave!!! The town didn’t have a very welcoming atmosphere anyway.
As we were leaving the Asco aire Brett realised that, when we filled up our water tank in Morella, he had left the filler cap to the tank on top of the service point – we had to make a decision, was it worth going back (75 miles) and probably not finding the filler cap or should we drive to the coast (45 miles) .................. bearing in mind we still hadn’t managed to buy any food the coast won, and now we’re looking for a camping accessory shop to buy a new filler cap (Brett is not happy, I’m just glad it wasn’t me!).

We got to the coast before 5.00 p.m., by now we were desperate for food as we had no milk, water, butter, bread or vegetables. We parked in Torredembarra (somewhere we thought we might find a wildcamping spot) and walked through the town – everything was still closed! But Brett did manage to pick up the internet on his Ipod and we got the co-ordinates for a wildcamping spot a couple of miles away (hoorah) and on our way there we found an open supermarket (double hoorah).
So now we’re wildcamping, about 20m from the Mediterranean Sea (yawn!), Ha Ha, another idyllic spot.

We’re only about 65 miles from Barcelona and we’re debating when we should head there – I still think it’s a bit close to the Easter break and will still be very busy, so we’ll probably stay here for a few days. There is a campsite close by so we might do a night there too, to get everything topped up and the internet – I know they’ve got it as I can get it on my laptop, unfortunately I haven’t got login details.


10th Apr PENISCOLA – MORELLA

Disappointingly there was no contact from Karen and Howard (Hen’s aunt and uncle) so we’ve moved inland to an aire recommended in the aire book.

The road was quite hairy; hair pin bends and sheer drops, but it was two lanes and there were some big trucks using it so it wasn’t too scary. We climbed to 1080m above sea level (Brett thinks that’s higher than Pen-y-Fan), our ears were popping. The scenery was lovely, as Brett said, it was how you would imagine Tuscany looks; neat terraced fields with sheep, goats and cattle, stone farm houses, and brilliant blue skies. There were river beds with stone bridges crossing them, but there was no water; we don’t know if this is because of the dry winter or if they only flow when the rain runs off the mountains.
View as we approached Morella

View from our van
The aire is just outside the town and the book said it was a seven minute uphill walk to the town – huh! The town was a mile away up hill and it took me at least seven minutes to get there on my bike (and my bike has an engine!!) and I was puffed out. And that was only the bottom of the town (and where we left the bikes); the church and castle were on the top of the hill which we had to climb up – so I was double puffed out when we got to the very top. But it was worth it the views were spectacular.

Morella has a Moorish castle (dating from 950), a Gothic church and the houses are really tall with, due to the narrowness of the streets, balconies that practically touch those opposite; all of the buildings have these fabulous, huge, thick, heavy, wooden doors – I got Brett to take a few pictures.
Just a door on a house!

Obviously a Church

I love this door, it was metal


Another house
When we got back to the van, about 5.30 p.m. the wind had picked up and the clouds over Morella were really black. All our neighbouring vans ‘battened down their hatches’ bringing in satellite dishes and aerials; lots of the vans we encounter are much more sophisticated than ours, bigger with dedicated bedroom(s), television (Sky of course), microwave and even washing machine – that’s not real camping; in fact being in a campervan isn’t real camping but I wouldn’t fancy spending a year in a tent, sleeping on the ground AND aires don’t allow tents, so it would cost more! It started raining about 6.00 and it’s rained on and off for most of the evening – I wonder if there’s any water in the river beds tonight?

9th Apr PENISCOLA

Laundry day today; as it’s an aire we didn’t know if we were allowed to hang out our washing (usually that’s one of the regulations) but as we had to pay it’s more like a campsite, so we risked it.

We cycled to the supermarket to get supplies, and had thought to spend the afternoon reading on the beach – the wind put pay to that!! The sun is lovely and warm as long as you’re protected from the wind.
Henry phoned to say that his aunt and uncle (my ex in laws) are staying in Andorra close by; we’ve tried to contact them, but so far have had no luck, it would be lovely to see them, last time we saw them was at Will and Gill’s wedding.

I had a horrible experience this evening; as I was changing the toilet roll the holder fell down the toilet into the waste chamber; we had to empty it and fish it out, yuk, yuk, yuk, – I spent the rest of the evening sterilising everything with neat bleach!!!!!!!!




8th Apr BENICASSIM – PENISCOLA

Choosing a wildcamping spot is always a bit hit and miss; mainly they’re fine and sometimes downright fantastic (like Puntas de Calnegre) and occasionally we get it wrong.

We look for somewhere where:-

*      We’re not going to disturb or annoy the local population with our presence

*      We feel safe; often that means where there are other campervans

*      It’s not too noisy

*      Of course it’s great if it looks nice too!

Last night we were parked on waste ground next to a very large car park, close to some flats, houses and a few bars/cafes. We were with seven other vans so we felt quite comfortable. We had noticed cars parking, in the car park, between 10 – 11.00 p.m. and remarked that the Spanish ate and socialised late. When we went to bed around midnight cars were still arriving and were now starting to fill up the waste ground. We went to sleep ....................... we were woken at about 1.30 a.m. by people laughing, shouting, whistling and talking loudly (completely oblivious to anyone trying to sleep – I’m thinking of the locals here rather than us). We looked out and there were at least a couple of hundred people hanging around in groups (obviously the cafes/bars had just closed). Then the ‘music’ started; cars with their stereos on really loud “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM ................ ; there was a car parked a couple of cars away from us with all it’s doors and boot open. We couldn’t sleep; Brett tried to use his headphones as ear plugs, but you could still ‘feel’ the beat. When do these people sleep? By 3.30 a.m. we decided to move to Lidls – but there were cars and people parked there too (and the campervans had gone); so we went back to the aire by the noisy road – bliss!! We slept in until 10.00.
A really easy trip today, that even our Sat Nav couldn’t mess up; to an aire/campsite that costs, but it has electric hook up and showers; well that’s what it said in the book, what it didn’t say was that the shower only had one tap – cold, as Brett found out when he went for his shower!!! I’m sorry I draw the line at a cold shower; so I put the water heater on in the van (using the electric hook up), after 40 minutes I undress, got in the shower, wet my hair whilst waiting for the warm water to come through, shampooed my hair, still waiting for the warm water and then realised that the electric hook up had tripped and that the water hadn’t been heating and that I had to have a cold shower after all! – Brett reckons that his shower was colder than mine.

All along the front here is pedestrianised, with a dedicated cycle path; well I wish they’d told all the walkers, showing off skaters, groups of runners, cyclists riding three abreast, children and all the other people I had to avoid when we went for a ‘ride’ – I spent more time off the bike (walking) than on.