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Thursday was not the best of nights, the bar at Camping Azul was still rocking at midnight when there restrictions meant it should have closed at ten. The British couple next door to us, fellow bloggers (not on travel blog but another one!), had taken it in turns to complain. The first complaint resulted in her being told that they had paid for their holiday and could pretty much do what they wanted to, the second complaint an hour or so later seemed to do the trick and the bar closed for the night. Having overslept we set to striking camp and were ready by 10.00am. I went to pay and complained about the night problems to receive a shrug, so nice to feel your custom is welcome.
Woolly says – I felt very tired and quite grumpy, but the sun was out and with the windows open Oliver was pawing the ground ready for the off. Following the streams of traffic through Oliva we were glad to get onto the N340. I think this must be one of the longest roads in the world, it goes on and on and on with nothing much to see. We
had planned to stop at a couple of castles enroute but the only ones were saw were a few rocks or totally impossible to access, so we ploughed on. We were running parallel with the mountains and the contrast was strange, huge black clouds sat over them while we were driving through a cloudless sky, weird. The road carried on, we passed industrial buildings and not a lot else until we arrived on the outskirts of Castello de la Plana. There seemed to be quite a few ladies sunbathing on the side of the roads, I asked Jo if we should stop and offer them some suncream and for some reason she and Ian found this very funny!
Poor Woolly, I don’t think this is what they would have wanted from us if we had stopped. It did make us think a little though about how vulnerable these girls must be, alone on the roads never knowing who might pull up, having lived through the Yorkshire Ripper years it made us feel a bit sad.
Woolly says – finally we pulled off the main road and followed the signs for the Camp we had
planned for the night, L’Almatla de Mar, reception was closed but a sign told us to find a pitch and report in when they opened at 4.30pm. The site looked nice, quiet and clean the only problem being that we couldn’t get a tent peg in, Georgie would have loved this site with its flat pitches but not for us with Big B. Back to the campsite book again. We read through the details of the next nearest site, a naturists haven. Ian and Jo didn’t seem too impressed but I was happy to throw off my bandana and go au natural. Deciding to try El’s Pratts Village again made Ian and Jo laugh, they said I would feel right at home there!
By now the wind had stopped making the trees dance but was meaning that they were bending sideways, going over bridges was hazardous and we saw an overturned lorry surrounded by police and cones. Pulling onto the site was a relief, nice grassy pitches, the beach was glorious with a bar set next to it, a pool, bowling and a restaurant offering a good cheap three course meal, what more could we want. A
tad expensive at 25 Euro’s (approximately £22.50 GBP) but the thought of being blown all over the show again we set up for the night.
A lovely night, although the wind was trying to left the tent away from the pegs we were happy campers. Being lazy we had opted to use the onsite restaurant, 11 Euros (approximately £9.80 GBP), gave us bread and olives, a starter, main course, desert and half a carafe of wine each, the food was incredible. We had left Woolly sulking in the tent so we could have a nice quiet meal, Ian choose the cannelloni starter with veal fricassee for mains and the Catalan caramel custard for afters, while I had the fisherman mussels, followed by salmon and tiramisu, the best meal ever. We later found out that they have won awards for the food, so glad it’s as cheap as it is!
Woolly says – I managed to sulk all night, not that anyone noticed! The plan had been to head to Tarragona and then onwards to the Pyrenees ready to head into Andorra. The weather forecast changed the plan, with high winds we felt better waiting
a day and going through in easier driving conditions. So Tarragona for the day it would be. After entering the city started the stress levels to rise, there are lots of Roman Ruins to view but finding parking was nearly impossible. We drove round the Forum several times before admitting defeat and decided to try the Amphitheatre instead. On street parking finally acquired, we could only have an hour and we had passed a castle, time to play the dumb Brit. We headed for the castle, paying our 3.25 Euro each (approximately £2.80 GBP), we went into a Roman Theatre, confused or what. The information told us that the castle had been built onto the small theatre to protect the city in 1369, and above the theatre was the Nun’s Tower which was used as a watchtower over the sea. It was a most peculiar place.
We followed the buildings round and found the vaults of the Romans, the longest in the city at 93 metres, which had been built in the 5
th century. Climbing up steps we passed rooms and statues from the Roman period before arriving on the roof of the castle. As Woolly says,
it was most peculiar. With our hour running out we headed back to Oliver and put another ticket on him, naughty but the thought of having to find somewhere else to park was not an option. The Amphitheatre came next and we held high hopes, the view over it was a little strange, why where there remains of other buildings in the middle of what would have been the fighting arena?
Woolly says – The city got stranger, we found a room with some basic information which told us that the Amphitheatre had been re-used to build a Church in 3
rd Century and then a Monastery had been added in the fifteen hundreds which was then converted to a prison during the 1760s. All these ruins on top of each other, bizarre. Having seen what we could we decided an ice-cream was in order before heading back out of the city to find the Aquaduct. Four kilometres out we drove past it once as the signage seemed to have vanished, circling back we found ourselves in a huge natural park. There were some signs so we followed them, hoping that they would lead us to an Aquaduct
that had not been changed into a casino or anything else. Finding our way through the trees we suddenly spied the 175 metre remains of the water system that would have supplied the whole city in Roman times. It was pretty cool and we were able to walk along the top, which bearing in mind our love of heights was a feat in itself. Tired and weary we headed back to site, a sit on the beach and an award winning tea to follow, and yes I would be going with them this time!
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