Barcelona to where..............Lleida of course

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Now without looking at your atlas or opening up Google can you say exactly how many kilometres it is from Barcelona to Lleida and in which direction from Barcelona is this city nobody has ever heard of except those that live there???
We have been watching the weather forecast for the past couple of days and rain has been predicted for the next several days on Spain’s Atlantic coastline.So we have started to have second thoughts about travelling in that direction as we have avoided any sustained periods of rain for the past 7 months and we would like to try and keep the record intact.
We have left these thoughts a bit late as this morning we are supposed to be heading in a general northwesterly direction to the city of Lleida.And to add to that we have accommodation booked that now cannot be cancelled without penalty so we shall let our thoughts blow out the window into the cool morning sun that Barcelona has served up today.
It shouldn’t be that bad,after all the forecast for Barcelona for the past 2 days had been for showers but none ever arrived.
It is over 600 kilometres to the Bay of Biscay a fact that we had misjudged a bit when we started thinking about where we wanted to go in Spain.On a boring highway/toll road you could do that distance in a day and arrive having seen nothing of the countryside and probably feeling like a caged prisoner having been in the car all day.So we have split the trip north into 3 days of travel with 2 nights of accommodation along the way.Not that there are a lot of options of places to stop although we have worked out the two nights accommodation with about 200 or so kilometres between them.This way we will get to see the countryside and not spend all day in the car.
Our hotel here in Barcelona has got to rate top or thereabouts for our hotel type stays and the best value for money and we wish the room and facilities could be replicated for us as we continue on this adventure.
Getting out onto the A2 was a piece of cake and with a dual carriageway we made very quick progress in the first 30 minutes or so.So much so that we started to wonder if we had been a bit timid in going for just 200 or so kilometres each day such is the quality of the road we have to travel on.
We cleared Barcelona’s outer suburbs and ahead of us was Montserrat,the range of hills that we would have liked to have photographed the other day but the sun was in the wrong place.Then we noticed a sign to take us off the road and the 11km to the National Park that the range of hills are part of.With plenty of time up our sleeve we diverted off the A2 and headed on the road around the pointed and knobbly hills that looked so fascinating from afar the other day.
Now the hills are right above us and have a slightly different look we guess because we are closer to them and they don’t have the expansive sky to stand out against.But they are still very photogenic and there is a different view of them around every corner the road winds.Off to the other side of the road the hills drop away quite sharply and it becomes clear that where we w ere the other day arriving into Barcelona was in a valley well below where we are driving now.
We turned around when we got to the park entry and a fee was required to go further.We had seen and taken all the photos of the strangely shaped peaks that we wanted to and it was time to get back to the A2 and on our way again.
The A2 continued for a short distance further as a dual carriageway with a concrete median down the middle before it narrowed down to one lane in each direction but still with the concrete median. At this point, just out of Barcelona, it is a good distance from the toll road heading in the same direction although the two get closer together later in the journey.
The vast majority of traffic on the road is trucks but they are not a problem as the road is relatively flat and where there are hills they are an easy grade so that the traffic all seems to keep a steady speed.In fact we have calculated that 80% of the traffic is trucks and because they are in such greater numbers over cars they tend to end up in small convoys of 5 to 10 with a gap of a couple of minutes between each convoy.There must certainly be some industrial cities ahead of us for so many trucks to be around.
The road ahead looked like it was dropping slowly down into a vast,expansive valley.You can see for many, many kilometres all around and ahead and to the sides there was an emptiness except for the occasional small village built on a rise in the land usually with a church bell tower as the highest point.Some of the land looked like it had carried crops during the summer but now had been ploughed and left for the next growing season.There was a total absence of any animals and anyway there weren’t any fields for them to graze in.The road skirted the villages meaning we continued to make unimpeded progress at 90kph very consistently.
Lunchtime arrived as we came across the town of Cervera and we decided to take the off ramp and do some exploring of the walled town and see if there was anywhere to buy lunch.
Cervera is the largest town we have seen since leaving the outskirts of Barcelona behind and just why it is here is a bit hard to understand as there is no large industry evident nearby.
We were surprised to see a University within the town when we headed out to stretch the legs although just how many students attended we couldn’t really tell as the main building was behind a very tall wall and the large wooden doors were closed.
We took a walk down to the older part of the town and the walled section and strolled around taking photographs of buildings that looked interesting.The wall of the city looked like it had had some restoration done on it but that has got to be good as at least history will be preserved.
Most of the town was quiet and shops closed as it was now after 1pm and siesta time but we did find a bakery open and we bought more pastry yummy things for lunch which we had in a small park in the centre of town.
The road continued on with the concrete median all the way to Lleida,the town we have chosen for our overnight stay.The trucks continued too and we reckon ALL of the trucks in Spain must travel this road every day.We have followed a railway line for parts of the journey and a double line at that and yet we haven’t seen one train so we guess most of what gets transported around this large country goes by road hence the number of trucks on the road.
You may be wondering why we would have chosen a place like Lleida other than it was about 200km on the way from Barcelona.
Well of course the deal had to be a good one for the BBA and in this one we have got a good tariff at€55 which includes breakfast PLUS the contents of the mini bar of the fridge in the room is FREE!!!So we have thoughts of a night of free booze.
The hotel had some good reviews and as we expected it turned out to be a very comfortable room in a modern hotel.
The contents of the mini bar fridge though was a disappointment with just soft drinks,water and packaged biscuits.Never mind we will consume it all we are sure before we pack up and head of tomorrow.
We had never heard of Lleida before we booked this room on the internet the other day and we must say we are surprised by the size of the city.We walked into town noting the huge number of new double story apartments that had recently been finished and were for sale on the main road into the town from the north that the hotel is located on.
The downtown area is principally apartment blocks of 10 to 12 stories high and there is a huge hospital just on the edge of the downtown area.Also on the edge of the town is a very modern soccer stadium with large grandstands.
We found a supermarket and got ourselves some dinner for tonight as we don’t think we can hang around until 9pm when the restaurant in the hotel opens.
Back at the hotel there is an indoor swimming pool and large spa pool and we took a dip in the spa reminding us of home!!

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Photos

Passageway gets a bit narrow here
And are those walls straight????