Another day in the saddle and another big jump of 280 miles between countries. I was up at 7am and at 7.30 I was on the upper deck of the ferry as we sailed into Marseille, looking at the changing landscape. By 8am I was in the car-deck, on the bike and rolling down the ramp onto the dockside. There was no border control so it was quick and easy to exit the port and get straight onto the adjacent autostrada heading west.
I was dreading this morning’s ride as looking at yesterdays weather forecast I was expecting heavy rain between Marseille and Montpellier but it hadn’t arrived and managed to sneak through, with all the dark clouds lurking on the far horizon to the north of me. I was really lucky.
It was 21 degrees when I got off the ferry but as soon as I got past Perpignan, it was like someone had thrown a switch on the central heating. When the sun started shining the temperature rose to 28 degrees – and it’s stayed at 28 all afternoon.
The plan for today was to head for Carcassonne (halfway between Narbonne and Toulouse) as there is a huge medieval castle I want to visit, but the weather for the next few days in that area was really heavy rain, which is why I decided to head south-west into Spain and towards Barcelona – which will hopefully miss much of the oncoming rain. Between Marseille to the Spanish border I relented and used the toll roads. Normally I avoid toll roads and take the scenic route, but today was a ‘big jump’ day so I told myself to stop grumbling about the money and just get on with it. The total was 18eu from Marseille to Perpignan.
After arriving in Spain, at Girona I came off the autostrada and headed towards the coast and the ever changing landscape. Because it’s now classed as winter in this part of the world, many campsites are closed for the season so I was expecting to have to ride around for a while to find one that is still open. I was heading for Loret De Mar and the road which brought me to the coast first brought me to Blanes, which is about 5 miles west of Loret. Deciding to have a ride around to see what was here I saw a campsite that was open – which looked pretty good, so I was soon outside the reception and doing an extremely poor job of speaking Spanish to get a pitch.
Camping Espagne is a really nice site, with superb toilets and showers – which are free. It’s 17.50 eu a night, which I kind of expected as it’s got a swimming pool and is adjacent to a beach and the sea. You also have to pay for wi-fi, which wasn’t too expensive. The site is full of trees, which offers a lot of shade. The guy on reception asked if I wanted a pitch at the very front near the beach and in the sunshine but I said no so he found me a quiet spot at the back of the site amidst the trees and the permanent caravans – and thankfully away from the campervans and their nocturnal sliding doors…
So, what am I going to do while I’m here…? Well, much of that depends on the weather. I’m not into sitting on the beach and ending up looking like a lobster, unless it’s in the shade, which maybe I’ll do for one day, but the two things I really want to do is visit Barcelona and Girona. There is a train station nearby so I can go into Barcelona on the train – which will only take an hour and save the worry of parking the bike. Girona is only 26 miles away so I’ll do that on the bike, and see some of the coastline too. Today has been a good day. I’m still feeling a bit rough around the edges from my cold, but I’m sure some sunshine will cure that…
