June 29, 2011

The day is slightly less windy than yesterday – that just makes it windy instead of very windy – and it is still hot, very hot.  However, we want to get moving on so we set off.

We start with a climb as we cross the Cap de Creus Natural Park, a protected area which includes the rocky coastline and the mountainous interior.  We get glimpses of a very blue Mediterranean far below as we cross the mountains over to another area of flatlands. We are heading towards some of the better known holiday resorts of Spain, such as Lloret de Mar and Tossa de Mar, but with the weather so hot we don’t really want to linger; we need to try to make some headway towards home before it becomes too hot to ride at all.

We stop at a bar for a drink and the owner asks us all the usual questions about the trip.  When we tell him where we are heading he shakes his head – the first part of our route is apparently fine but he doesn’t advise the road I have selected to get us around Barcelona.  He suggests that the C25 further inland would be a better alternative.  For today we can continue along the route we had planned, but I will need to take another look at the maps before tomorrow to decide if we should make a change to our planned route.

We are absolutely worn out after 80 or so kilometres and decide to find accommodation for the night – unfortunately this turns out to one of those nights when we can’t find anywhere to stay when we need to.  A sign indicates a hotel off the main road – we follow it – as always it doesn’t say how far it is to the hotel and so we keep following sign after sign, until several kilometres later, we eventually arrive.  It looks absolutely gorgeous – a huge stone built place with beautiful gardens.  It looks the sort of place that will not want two very hot and sweaty cycle tourists in the lobby!  I sort of sneak in to look at the list of tariffs posted in the lobby – just as I thought €355 per night – definitely not for us.  I sneak back out again and we have to retrace our steps before deciding where to head for next.  The best bet seems to be to head towards the coast, as the chances of accommodation always seem to improve the nearer to holiday resorts you get.

We end up cycling an extra 12 km in the opposite direction to where we were going to find a B&B and tomorrow we will need to retrace our steps, so all in all we will have done about an extra 30 km just to find a bed for the night.  It always happens just when you are especially tired.