Smoky Mountain Rain(Ronnie Milsap) - Heading to France in the Drizzling Rain of the Costa Brava - 9th May 2016

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The BBA V3 has come to the end of the adventure around Spain and we have certainly covered at least the coastal part with a little interior driving as well.

We came to Spain without any real idea of how we would enjoy the sights and travel and leave with a mixed feeling of being pleased to have seen and taken in the history where we travelled but also a bit disappointed with the sameness of some of the scenery. Mind you we are spoilt coming from such a scenic country as New Zealand has a deserved reputation for.

We caught the flu in Santiago and that didn’t help our mindset for a week or so and our time in Portugal suffered because of that although we were lifted during our short time near Nazare where we stayed with a lovely English couple as our hosts and we devoured their British TV for 2 days when we went out sightseeing.

The weather has we guess been variable and for much of our time particularly on the western side of the Iberian peninsula we were dogged by a low pressure system that wouldn’t go away and in fact is still there but not as strong in intensity.

We have a good appreciation of Spain’s rich history and have been impressed by the buildings, churches and other structures and the detail of the architecture. Because of our flu we didn’t get to take in Porto or Lisbon in Portugal and we may have missed out but you can’t do much about picking up the bug.

Compared to other parts of Western Europe, Spain and Portugal is certainly poor and has a way to go to catch up with the affluence of say France and this image is not helped by the state of the countryside with rubbish strewn in many places tourists frequent and they don’t seem to care about picking up dog poo either!

We did frequent a few very nice suburban areas in our travels and on occasions where we stayed but there is little appreciation for a tidy section or colourful garden which we achieve at home in the spring where it is just something you do.

But in saying this we don’t want to sound negative about our 6 weeks travelling the Iberian Peninsula because we enjoy seeing new places and having new experiences whether they turn out quite like we might have thought they might and we won’t forget our time here,we wouldn’t have come if this was going to be the case.

The weather hasn’t really improved since yesterday but we will continue on out planned drive along the remainder of the Spanish coast to get over the border into France.

For once our hotel room has an electrical plug close to the window which we can open and then operate our toaster for breakfast without too much fear of setting off the smoke detector on the other side of the room.

Another advantage of the bargain discounted room was it had a bar fridge so we had emptied it of the high priced alcohol and put the contents of our chilly bag in to keep that cold overnight.

We had discovered as we were going to bed last night that a busload of Asian tourists had arrived, perhaps they had got the same cheap rate as us, and had been noisy as we were trying to get off to sleep. The same applied in the morning with one of them going along the passageway knocking on doors presumably to wake the passengers up for breakfast and then an early departure. We haven’t been plagued by noisy people, other than here and in Mojacar when the drunk Brits came home sometime in the early morning, and that has been one of the big advantages of the Air BnB accommodations as they have generally been apartments away from other people.

We managed to gets ourselves and our ‘stuff’ into the lift and down to the basement car park again without the reception staff seeing who they had accommodated overnight and we were on our way by a rather circuitous route that Gina had designed for the first hour of driving. We decided later on reflection that to get to the north easterly direction we needed to make the coast we had to go one way down the three lane highway towards Barcelona only then to go off and head partly back on the other side of the same highway!

All of this in light drizzly rain on a busy back to work, for many, Monday morning with trucks and cars flying past us all doing the 110kph limit.

After an hour of this we made the coast at Mataro which had been a location we had considered after visiting Montserrat before we found the bargain room at the Golf and Spa place but it was just as well we didn’t as we would have been exhausted after the long drive and visit to the abbey.

We took the N11 north towards the border with France and despite the continuing drizzly rain enjoyed the more relaxed drive and the coastal views even though it wasn’t pleasant enough to stop and hardly worth taking photos when the scenery had all but disappeared on us.

We were now on the famed Costa Brava with seaside towns passing at frequent intervals and big seas from the weather system bringing the inclement weather, pounding onto the coast on the right hand side of the car.

After Calella the N11 turned more inland whereas we wanted to keep the coastal driving going and so we diverted to N31.It would make the day longer but we were ever hopeful that the drizzle might clear and we would get a better perspective of the coastal scenery and enjoy the vistas that the Costa Brava is famous for.

At Lloret de Mar we took a diversion for some supermarket shopping. This sort of almost daily activity for the BBA V3 is usually a simple matter but today it turned out to be more of a challenge for two reasons.

We noticed a large building with a car park in front of it and although we didn’t recognise the brand name of the supermarket we thought it would be OK to get the supplies and lunch we needed.

However, things were not as they seemed and after entering we found ourselves unable to get past another barrier. We then realised this wasn’t the usual supermarket we go to but a wholesale type operation and we couldn’t get out. A woman was in an office with glass all around but she ignored us typing a text ad even when we tapped on the open window she continued to ignore us waving one hand towards another person who eventually came and ‘released us ‘from our predicament.

Back in the car we then spotted a Dia supermarket ahead to the right of us and we thought it would be easy to get there but how wrong we were. A divided road and then a slip road resulted in us doing 2 circuits before we made it to the car parka five minute exercise had taken 30 minutes!

We began to realise that the coastal option was going to take us a lot longer than had we taken the main road, the N11, to the border, and the weather wasn’t showing any signs of clearing.

The last short section of road to the border after Roses was as coastal as you could get with the road clinging to the cliffside, rising and falling as we went from bay to bay.

The road number changed at Llanca to the N260 and we passed over and through what was the eastern end of the Pyrenees albeit at a much lower altitude than where we crossed them to get into Spain from France 6 weeks ago.

At Portbou we had to make the decision to fill up with the cheaper petrol in Spain and on a windy, wet hillside just 100 metres before the border was a petrol station somehow perched on the steep hillside and we made the most of the 20 cent per litre saving over the cost of petrol in France where the taxes must be substantially higher.

Starting Peggy after filling with petrol gave us cause for concern when all of a sudden the 45 minutes left to run to our destination according to the GPS became 2 hr 45 minutes for some reason.

It must have been something to do with the border crossing because after travelling 500 metres or so into France and the GPS changed the travel time left to run back to 40 minutes.

The weather did seem to improve a little as we progressed towards Canet-Plage as we made contact with the guy who owned the apartment we were booked into a street back from the beach.

He couldn’t make it to let us into the apartment building but sent a text with the numbered combination for the front and apartment doors and hey presto we were in after a long day on the road.

The apartment is a small studio and had an interesting bed options.

To be able to accommodate 4 people the owner has built a bunk which is floor to ceiling virtually in height. The bottom is a bed that doubles as a settee and then folds out to create a double bed. While the upper bed mattress is laid on slats of timber. This would be fine to sleep on except there is only 18 inches or perhaps 2 feet headroom to the ceiling.

We gave the idea of sleeping on the upper bunk when the thought of having to get up in the nature for a call of nature would probably have us crashing our head into the ceiling and then probably falling backwards off the steep steps up to the top bunk as we climbed down in the dark. And it will be dark when we drop the motorised shutter for the night.

PS:we had found a song called Costa Brava to go with this blog but thought Ronnie Milsap's song represented the wet day and the hilly winding roads we drove on until we reached France,and we love his song too!

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