Thursday 28 February 2013

Awoken at 3.00 am to thunderstorm and torrential rain - yep we were right, we've seen the last of the sun! Still raining at getting up time so it was a very wet and bedraggled Terry (who volunteered!) servicing the van.

Today we start our return home in earnest, working our way up the coast into France then north across country. We won't bore you with a blow by blow account, just show you a few pictures we took between the showers.

Roundabout art, near Cambrils

More just up the road

We by-passed Tarragona then headed for Barcelona and here's where it all went wrong! We discovered our planned route took in toll roads, and being the cheapskates that we are, we don't use toll roads! Now anyone who has driven around Barcelona will know that it is worse than Spaghetti Junction and inevitably we managed to get onto the Ave. Diagonal, the main road that runs straight through the middle. In rush hour. Well T has been here before so just carry on and take some pictures while we're at it. At least it had stopped raining!

No idea. Somewhere off the Ave. Diagonal

Lots of roundabouts, lots of traffic lights and millions of black and yellow taxis.

This building was at the bottom end of the Diagonal, and the area is now totally different to what T remembers. There was also a dearth of road signs, trying to follow the netbook was hopeless so inevitably we got lost, ending up in the commercial port area and having to retrace our steps. Eventually, in a little side street somewhere, we came across a signpost! At last, no longer lost Not where we wanted to be but not lost.










So we were spat out back on the coast road and found our way back onto our route. The sea was very rough with large waves crashing onto the narrow beaches, threatening the railway which was all that was between us and a good wetting.

Now way behind our schedule we revised our plans for a stop. Fortunately a bit of research told us of a couple of aires just beyond Lloret de Mar so we headed there, an area visited more than a few times in T's professional past.

For once the book got the directions right and we came straight to the aire at Feliu de Guixol, near the bus station, and joined several more vans for the night. Then it started raining again.