Every passing minute gives you a chance to turn around
It was a sad moment saying goodbye to Nicky and David after such a great week together, but we managed it; the teary moment came later. One positive note of leaving Camping Eden – we won’t miss the mulberry trees with their horrible, squishy, sticky fruit. It’s taken a while to clean the floor and remove all the stains from the back-door mats.
The girls at Orange remembered us and set us up with yet another sim card. Somehow, we spent nearly two hours topping up our internet access, topping up our fridge and cupboards, topping up with LPG gas and topping up Eileen with diesel, before getting back on the road north. The Ebro Delta began to spread out to the east of us; no time to stop and look at birds and wet fields that provide a lot of the rice for billions of paellas cooked in Spain; we were in search of another legend.
The A7 followed the coastline of the Mediterranean; we were now on the Costa Daurada, no more Costa Azahar, no more Costa Blanca. We giggled when we passed a few ‘orange sellers’, they are in fact prostitutes who sit on plastic chairs beside the road, doing their nails and chatting on mobile phones, until someone stops to buy their wares……. We also passed a few real orange sellers, who always look far more tempting with their bulging net bags full of bright, glossy fruit. Nearing Tarragona, we turned off the main road and drove up to Montblanc, which made us feel a wee bit disorientated…… Montblanc?!!
It was a lovely Michelin two-star town, full off cobbled streets and surrounded by walls dotted with thirty-two square towers. At the Sant Jordi Torre-portal, something amazing happened, many years ago……. or so the legend says. St George actually, (or was it allegedly?) killed the dragon right there, at that tower gate. At the tourist information office, you can watch a 3D video explaining how they have pinpointed the dragon’s murder to this very spot. Naturally there are lots of references to St George all around town.
Eileen then took us a little further inland, up to the Cistercian Real Monastir de Santa Maria de Poblet, near L’Espluga de Francoli; what a mouthful. It was founded in 1150AD and is, as expected, a very simple, but lovely place. It was sadly abandoned in 1835, but the monks returned in 1940 and have restored it and added some new buildings. Despite there being a few other tourists wandering around with us, it felt very peaceful and calm. There were no dragons here.
By now it was 5pm and we were running a little late on our normal campsite check-in times. We had obviously mislaid our well-established habits after staying in Peniscola for so long; our travel rhythm was out of tune. Tarragona was on the itinerary for Friday, so we found a campsite nearby and checked in to Camping Las Palmeras. It’s right on the beach, though sadly we can only hear and not see it from where we’ve been put. An assortment of trains whizz past, just behind us; thankfully not all night and although the bathrooms are very nice, there are not many of them and we might need our bikes to get to the nearest one!! I think this will definitely only be a two-nighter.
Friday came around after a night with earplugs well stuffed in the right and in the left ears. Then we tried to get in to a more Spanish rhythm of living by not catching a bus into town, until the whole morning had gone. The midday bus took only fifteen minutes to drop us off on Rambla Vella, right on the edge of the Centre Histόric and off we went on our rambles around somewhere new; or was that old? In Tarragona there are numerous Roman remains, lots of mediaeval bits and everything else in between and after. As a contrast we wandered in to the Museu D’Art Modern and confirmed that we both like a bit of Joan Miró.
Staying on Spanish time, at 3pm we found the Tόful Restaurante just off the Placa del Forum, where the meal was nice and the staff were lovely. Tarragona was a charming city to amble around. There are plenty of people strolling about, drinking coffees and eating outside restaurants, but there seemed to be an aura of quietness. All conversation seemed to be a murmur, or gentle laughter, nothing raucous or loud. It was almost as if everyone was in a dream. I think the ambience of a place can definitely give you a feeling, or memory that can be good, bad, or indifferent. Tarragona most certainly made us feel pleasantly relaxed.
After lunch we continued our ramblings for the rest of the afternoon. We gazed over the remains of the Roman Amfiteatro and promenaded the full length of the Rambla Nuevo. On the way back the police were blocking one of the crossroads to enable a long parade of people, horses, cattle and various paraphernalia to cross. It was apparently an Andalucian Folklore Festival, in town for the Pentecost long weekend. It was all very colourful and raised the volume of the town just a bit…..
Having just discovered that it is a long weekend, we thought we better get off sharply to Barcelona, just in case the campsite we were aiming for was already full. We joined the toll road at Calafell and started paying our way. First booth, €3.61 paid in cash, easy. Second booth, we followed the same signs but somehow ended up in one that didn’t take our €6.55 in cash. Oops, that created a nice queue behind us and we couldn’t back out. Thank goodness for the red button. Don’t you just love people who can’t get in the correct lane…..!
Camping Tres Estrellas was the only campsite in the A.C.S.I book that had good access to Barcelona and fortunately they did have spaces available. The site is right beside the beach and we’ve picked a spot fifty metres from the sand. We’ve left the noisy trains behind, but we’re now at the end of Barcelona airport’s runway ……hmmmm. If you were a fan of plane spotting, this is the place for you; you can almost see the pilot smiling!!!
