Okay, well the journey across the narrow bit of Spain wasn’t too bad at all. It’s about 400 miles and when we got here we both felt that we could have easily gone another couple of hundred. Smooth Spanish motorways and cruise control made it so easy. Surprisingly, considering the extra weight in the car, we still made well over 50mpg but the fuel crisis has hit hard here too and a tank-full cost €84 - £67! I was hoping for nearer £50 per tank but I’m sure we’ll cope.
There was a bit of an incident when we didn’t understand the first toll booth and were expecting someone to ask us for money but it was an automated one and you are supposed to just take a ticket and present that at the end of the motorway. Luckily there weren’t any cars behind us and we managed to reverse out of the toll gate and wait for assistance where we were told what to do by an attendant. So I have managed to reverse on a Spanish motorway. I’m sure I’d get points or a bloody good ticking off for that at home but the attendant was very nice about it, although I bet she went back to the office muttering about “Crazy Inglesi”.
We also managed to get to the wrong Ibis hotel. The name for street on the internet booking was in Spanish but this is the Cataluña region so the correct name is in Catalunyan. I did think it was odd that the sat-nav wouldn’t accept the street name when we tried to put it in before leaving Bilbao. I think this happens a lot because the receptionist at the wrong hotel had a stack of photocopied maps to get us to the right one.
The hotel is in the town of Castelldefelles which is about 10 miles from Barcelona but there is a train station a 10 minute walk away that will take us into Barcelona and it looks like there are places to explore here as well.
There were grand plans today to go into the local town, go to the local shops, have a look at the beach and then go into Barcelona this evening for a spot of night-life. The reality was that there was the most gorgeous beach that was about a 2 mile walk from the hotel and we went, we saw and we sunbathed! No sunburn so far thanks to liberal slappings on of factor 15 so we have managed to get some colour other than lobster red.
We got back from the beach about 2 hours ago and they are still serving ice-cold San Miguel so it looks like we are here for the night.
Buenos nochas amigos!
There was a bit of an incident when we didn’t understand the first toll booth and were expecting someone to ask us for money but it was an automated one and you are supposed to just take a ticket and present that at the end of the motorway. Luckily there weren’t any cars behind us and we managed to reverse out of the toll gate and wait for assistance where we were told what to do by an attendant. So I have managed to reverse on a Spanish motorway. I’m sure I’d get points or a bloody good ticking off for that at home but the attendant was very nice about it, although I bet she went back to the office muttering about “Crazy Inglesi”.
We also managed to get to the wrong Ibis hotel. The name for street on the internet booking was in Spanish but this is the Cataluña region so the correct name is in Catalunyan. I did think it was odd that the sat-nav wouldn’t accept the street name when we tried to put it in before leaving Bilbao. I think this happens a lot because the receptionist at the wrong hotel had a stack of photocopied maps to get us to the right one.
The hotel is in the town of Castelldefelles which is about 10 miles from Barcelona but there is a train station a 10 minute walk away that will take us into Barcelona and it looks like there are places to explore here as well.
There were grand plans today to go into the local town, go to the local shops, have a look at the beach and then go into Barcelona this evening for a spot of night-life. The reality was that there was the most gorgeous beach that was about a 2 mile walk from the hotel and we went, we saw and we sunbathed! No sunburn so far thanks to liberal slappings on of factor 15 so we have managed to get some colour other than lobster red.
We got back from the beach about 2 hours ago and they are still serving ice-cold San Miguel so it looks like we are here for the night.
Buenos nochas amigos!
