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Published: November 2nd 2008
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2nd November -Sunday
Spain Vilanova Park - Vilanova I La Geltru, Barcelona .
(Double click on photos to enlarge . Not doing the map at the moment as the software keeps crashing.)
Our last days in Tarascon were cold and wet. The threat of snow made up our minds to move on. In the last couple of days there, we met a British couple who had arrived late one night. They introduced themselves and explained they were on their first trip abroad. After chatting they turned out to be even more of innocents abroad than we were! Frighteningly so, actually. They had sold their business and house , bought a caravan and car and set off for Spain. I don’t think they had caravanned before and seemed a bit ill prepared. The bloke seemed especially clueless. We had an hour or two chat in the awning and hopefully suggested a few things that might help. Hope they get on OK.
The previous few days had been cold and rainy in Tarascon which meant it had fallen as snow on the higher ground. The day before moving on we had taken the X trail
up the Port de Lers and encountered a winter wonderland.
The tow through the Pyrenees was even more picturesque.
As we went over the border it was a bit of an anticlimax.
In Bourg Madame high in the mountains we went over a river bridge and were in Spain. Same town, just the other side of the river , no barriers, no customs , nothing . Just a bridge that people walked and drove over like any old town bridge! However the roads instantly became better quality and continued to improve all the way to Barcelona. Exiting the Cadi tunnel was interesting as we left the snow behind and descended through the industrial/mining area of the upper Llobregat valley . In the distance as we approached Barcelona we could see the mountains of Montserrat like jagged teeth on the horizon.
We decided to follow the sat nav. around Barcelona. It took us scarily close into the outskirts on the motorway and ( of course) we missed our motorway intersection and ended up heading into Central Barcelona with the caravan on! The sat-nav. tried to recalculate our route and we finally composed ourselves and followed the
route she proposed. Through busy Barca suburbs! Thankfully we didn’t have to do this for long before ( with huge releif)regaining the motorway, south out of the city. Bet they don’t get too many caravanners round there!
We arrived here in Vilanova on the 30th Nov.
The site at Villanova is a big culture shock after the last few weeks in France. In France we had been camping virtually alone, one of no more than a couple caravans on the whole site. Here we are on a holiday park of huge proportions with over a thousand pitches! Not full but probably 70% full at the moment. Pools, supermarket, restaurant, gym, bar, games pitches...everything.....( including barking dogs and trick or treating Spanish Youths!)
It’s taking me a while to adjust. The weather is awful and we have had days of heavy to torrential showers and very gusty winds. The second night we were woken at two in the morning by a very loud bang on the roof.
An overhanging tree branch had broken and landed on the van in the high winds.
Luckily no damage was done but it could have been nasty.
The Sat dish
also got blown over and the awning was full of leaves blown under the flaps. We reset it onto Astra only to upset it again later that day by Martin running over the tripod leg with the car and bending it! We straightened the leg as best we could and reset it only to have it blown out of line again the next night! I am so sick of resetting the damn thing!
Vilanova is not much to see, covered in graffiti. However Sitges, just up the coast, is lovely and we spent a pleasant afternoon there today having Sunday lunch at the Santa Maria Hotel restaurant. Martin was like a cat with the cream when he got a plate of Paella the size of a bin lid! (It was our end of the month treat as we had successfully budgeted last month despite the loss of Icesave’s interest. )
The stormy skies and crashing waves were quite atmospheric but we arrived to torrents of water gushing down the streets like a river ! The Nissan came into its own as we drove through the swirling brown water . The Spanish don’t do drainage.
It may
be wet and windy but its warmer here which makes it more bearable and quicker to dry off when it stops.
Trouble is the wet weather is encouraging the feral cats on the site to come into our awning at night and sleep on the chairs and pee on the groundsheet! Not sure how we’re going to stop them but we have swilled the suspect areas with Aqua Rinse to mask the smell till we can get to hose it down.
We hope to travel back to Montserrat tomorrow to have a closer look weather permitting.
Stop press! Just discovered we’ve been infested by ants in the van! Welcome to Spain! We're nipping home for "a bit o' dinner "on Friday though , see you soon!
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