Farewell to Fay, our wallets and Spain...

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Arrived on the outskirts of Barcelona early to get a place in a campsite as they tended to be overflowing by early afternoon. Once again we found a place right on the beach and on the bus route into Barcelona. Spent the afternoon relaxing, washing etc and headed into Barcelona for a speed tourism day the next day. This included taking the open top bus tour (much to Jason’s dismay as he vowed to never do this) and stopping off to see some fantastic Gaudi sights along the way. The Guell park was a highlight that was shared by at least 5 million other tourists fighting for photos opportunities. A bit overwhelming for us but Fay seemed to take it all in her stride…either oblivious to it or used to it having done the European city tour previously.

Barcelona was by far the busiest, most touristy city we have visited so far, but rightly so. The buildings, especially those influenced by Guadi, were fantastic and unlike anything we have ever seen. We topped the day off with dinner and a flamenco show which delighted Fay and was a great way to end our time together. We thoroughly enjoyed travelling with Fay and were constantly amazed by her enthusiasm and ability to just keep going and going (I know, who would expect anything different from this amazing woman!) Thanks Fay for the company!

We left Fay at the airport in Barcelona (Kirst in tears!) and headed for the hills. Montserrat to be exact. An old monestary and Basilica built on the top of a very steep mountain of course, after a wooden statue of Mary and Child was found there in the early 11th century. We took a cable car to the top which was lots of fun…it had been running since the early 1900s. After Montserrat, we again headed towards the coast, camping on a small farm site near Girona.

The next day was spent travelling up the coast of Spain on the Costa Brava, an amazingly rugged coastline at the end of the Pyrenees. We had anticipated spending one more night in Spain somewhere here before crossing over into France once again. However, the local criminals had other plans for us. Stopping at what appeared to be a harmless little lookout to take in the view, they stole both of our wallets out of the van as we stood only about 15m away. We had the van locked but we now know that VW locks are certainly not worth the replacement cost!

This all happened in the little port town of Port De La Selva and after a serious brown undie moment, we managed to flag down a passing policeman who spoke enough English to tell us that we needed to go to the station to file a report. Thought we had better do this as we now had no photo card licences and hopefully a statement from police saying they had been stolen would suffice. Giving a statement was interesting as the police woman tried her best to communicate in broken English and we in even more broken Spanish!

Left with 70 euros to our name (thanks to Jason’s workmates who had given him euros as a leaving gift- thanks St Mary‘s staff), we booked into a camping ground that was happy for us to pay when we left and began the long and drawn-out process off getting replacement cards sent to Spain. We did a good job of rationing our funds, firstly making sure we had enough beer to get us through and enough gas to keep them cold!

Spent five days here resting, walking in the surrounding hills (we didn’t have enough money to fill the fuel tank which was on empty so Clancy had an extended break) and liaising with Lloyds in the UK. True to their British form the bank was absolutely hopeless and wasn’t able to give us any consistent advice. This culminated in a phone call to them in which we were told that they would never send a card overseas (we had just received one!) and that Jason had closed the account. Apparently this was all a mistake although they had incorrectly sent Jason’s replacement card to our London address instead of Spain. Not to worry we now have two cards which we can use…less to lose that way!

So after getting all of our finances in order and replenishing the cupboards, we finally were able to cross the border to France. Jas having a few more grey hairs from the stress of waiting and Kirst now turning a shade of black from spending so much time at the beach!

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