18 April 2017

A quieter morning saw us wake up slightly later so a quick decision on where to drive was required, the services made use of and we were on the road in no time.

As Lucy has been learning Spanish this year at school and has done nothing but trying to speak Spanish everywhere we’ve been we decided to head to Spain. Barcelona was the nearest Spanish city with a Hard Rock Cafe so SatNav was set and this was where we were heading.

Our diesel light had come on during to long single road into Camargue and we hadn’t seen any petrol stations for a long time. In Camargue the only petrol station was very small, it was either reverse in or break all the rules and pull in from the wrong side, we got a few strange looks but at least we got some diesel.

The difference in traffic now being a non holiday day was obviously and queues for toll booths were hideous. Suddenly 8 lanes of queues would squeeze down to 4 with cars dashing everywhere, we did not enjoy this for the pleasure to pay.
During the drive we spotted snow on mountains and the Mediterranean Sea and as we approached Barcelona the temperature rose and the roads got busier.

Our research of Barcelona was limited but the safest looking place to stay was a city aire with a metro straight into the centre. A lovely man greeted us on arrival and we followed his crazy moped driving to a pitch where he squeezed us into a corner, for one night it was fine.

The metro was much like any underground, it was fun, cheap and very fast. Luckily for us the station we got off at was literally on The Hard Rock Cafe’s door step. Cocktails were in order!

Barcelona was everything we expected and more. There were people everywhere and tat shops in every direction. We strolled round for several hours taking in the sights then from the hundreds of bars, restaurants and pubs we selected another Italian restaurant for dinner where we had a lovely meal.

As we returned to the van it seemed the temperature was rising, it became very close so we sat with windows open for a while. Although the aire seemed safe it was not quite a leave windows open over night venue so quite an uncomfortable warm night followed, we all wished we had packed the air conditioning unit.

Overnight Location: Barcelona City Aire, Spain

Overnight Cost: €39

Overnight Coordinates: 41.42414°N 2.20734°E

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