Day 61: Tarragona to Hospitalet de l'Infant

October 26, 2023

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While Tarragona does have a nice claim to tourist interest for its medieval streets and Roman ruins, it remains a fairly grotty port town outside of that. We got to descend through that part of town as we continued our trek south west along the coast.

An interesting but not touristy section.

This truck (blocking our way) was using a lift from outside to get something up and into the building.

There is a blocked off lift, so you can use the stairs to descend closer to the water, if you want!

About 10 km out of Tarragona, the scene is still like this.

Our track really wanted us to go to Salou and this road seemed to be the only way. Only thing, a sign said no bikes. Just like a "route barree", did they know something we didn't - like the shoulder was about to disappear and the speed limit jump up. Should we risk it?

We had no idea what "veins" are, but we decided we must be that.

The road continued with fast traffic, but at least a decent shoulder. One problem with roads like this, of course, is the on and off ramps, which cause cars to want to run you off the road, from the left or the right.

Lots of storage in those cylinders - could be chemicals, or grain?

Oh, oh they are repeating the bike warnings. What came ahead was construction where the shoulder all but disappeared. Fortunately, a considerate driver protected us by following at a distance and preventing others from trying to pass us.

We finally managed to get off the big road, and now were passing near the major amusement park called Port Aventura.

We debated how much they would have to pay us to go on this thing!

Whereas the amusement park seemed to be part of the high speed road/ industrial area, in fact it was sitting on the edge of the seaside fun stuff. Soon we were into that, and a day that had started with high stress became one of much fun and enjoyment.

This commemorates the event in 1229 when the Catalan fleet set sail to conquer Mallorca back from the Moors.

The palms that line the boulevard are colourful on their own, but they also contain dates, and parakeets!

We watched this nest for a fair bit, because we had seen a resident parakeet go in and out.

He is not the only subject to look askance at a photo.

Magpies have become easy to spot, so now the challenge is to have a pair of them.

In some form, seaside safe cycling would continue for along way.

We would sur rather be here than in those coastal mountains!

Christmas must be coming, because crews are stringing lights.

A bit of a breakwater allowed one to walk out to where rollers were still rolling by. These Mediterranean waves are nowhere near as big as the Atlantic ones in Portugal, but can still roar and splash satisfyingly.

A "Little Train" is a sure sign that we are in a desirable tourist area.

In one area, the bike path tended to be clogged by people with many sacks and bags piled up on trolleys. We soon saw that these were sidewalk trinket vendors, who were setting out their blankets up ahead. We have seen such vendors, for instance, on bridges in Paris. They keep the four corners of their blanket clear, so they can grab up their wares and take off when police are approaching. But here they are ok, which we could see by nearby police who were just lounging about. When I went to take a photo of the market scene, one of the men accosted me from the rear, making it clear that photos were not to be taken. But "no photos" is a nerve that it is best not to touch with me, and I shouted at him my standard well reasoned response, slightly adjusted for the circumstance: "I am a tourist on a tourist beach. Tourists take photos. If you don't like that, then don't be on this beach!" He responded with similar clarity "No, no, no!" and I concluded the debate with some sort of dismissive obscenity. I could not help but notice that all the vendors were of African origin, and it is possible that my guy could be objecting to a photo of one of his bagged women. Look at my photo and hopefully agree that I did not deserve to be accosted.

We continued down this stretch, with a nice path and interesting houses and businesses across the street.

For a bit we got kicked back up to the N-340, but it was relatively quiet at that point. I could pull out the camera and document in just one shot the fact of being on N-340 and a very large vendor of palm trees that we were passing.

We passed many many olive trees, some seemingly wild and some in orchards. They were all laden with fruit, but it must be early in their season because the olives looked small.

We passed some Ipomea (Morning Glory) that seemed like a special colour to me, but looking here at the photo, they seem quite normal.

At least I can show that there were a lot of them.

Dodie is always a sucker for an alluring looking computer track, so when we came to a spot where the GPS suggested a quieter way, we went for it. The quieter way soon involved going through this tunnel.

I walked up for a closer look - yeah, sort of ok.

Beside the tunnel was posted a list of prohibitions. I certainly could understand no fishing and no camping in the tunnel, and at least it did not say no photos, but we still gave it a miss.

Back on N-340, Dodie decided that there ought to be a way to get back by the sea. So this time we hung a left and descended through various levels of parallel to the sea roads until, eureka, a seaside paved path! We followed that joyfully for a while, until it was time to ascend once again, to find our hotel "Sancho", in the piece of the more or less continuous seaside development called Hospitalet de l'Infant. This was surely its own village at one time, but now it's kind of blended in.

We were an hour before check in time but with hope I went through the door. No one at the desk, but in the adjoining bar was an old couple. I somehow determined that they were management, though they declared they knew no English. I thumped my chest: "Steve Miller" and the magic (I hoped) word "Booking". This produced a dawning recognition, and the old lady went behind the bar, producing a tattered journal. Turning some pages she came to the faint entry in pencil "Steve Miller". Bingo!

What followed was a tortured discussion of where the bikes might go, where the room was, when and if and where we would pull the bags off - all normally standard fare. It was tortured, that is, until the lady happened to ask if we spoke French, because she did. Well now, a dam had broken and we all chattered away with such relief that we now could communicate. I even asked the old guy if he knew French, and he replied "Pocito", but in fact we could communicate with him too. We think the "old" lady was probably our age, but the guy must have been over 80. Both walked very slowly, but the lady was still pretty sharp.

Still, we are wondering if this pair is making us breakfast tomorrow, what might appear as we would take our places in the bar.

BONUS TOPIC

It's always a bit of a topic how to have telephone and data service in Europe, when skipping from one country to another. On the surface, the EU fixed this by legislating against roaming charges within the EU, and arrangement which despite Brexit still also includes the UK. But there is a catch - if you roam outside the home country of your SIM "too much", then the telcoms will slap on additional fees. Basically, when measured over 4 months you have to be in the home country more than you are away. In principle that stops us from (as we have done) getting a UK SIM in the UK from Lycamobile UK, and using it indefinitely to "Cross Europe". An alternative, one chosen by the Andersons, is to use the "travel" SIM offered by Orange. But this turns out to be very much more costly than a generic SIM from a single country. So we took the partial step of cancelling the auto recharge on the UK Lyca SIM and starting up a French one.

But today our VISA piped up to report that Lyca UK had charged another month. I called customer support and waited a LONG time, thereby burning up data or minutes or something on our French SIM. Lyca UK then assured me that one can not cancel the recharge online, and therefore they were still in business, collecting from our VISA. To their credit, since the SIM had not been used (for some weeks), they would refund the charge and do the cancellation. But I just thought I would publish the screenshot below, to call bullshit on their assertion that cancellation is not covered on their website!

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 3,044 km (1,890 miles)

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Kathleen ClassenWe flew over your track today and I was glued to the window looking for two bright yellow specks below hehe. Didn’t see you though! All went well to Montreal. Our flight to Victoria is delayed.
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1 year ago

Gregory GarceauI like your occasional use of the word "grotty." I've rarely heard that word since the 1980's, and I can safely say that I've NEVER seen it in print. I hadn't even thought about how it was spelled until I saw how weird it looked on your journal. I would have guessed g-r-o-a-t-y.

Anyway, I often throw a few retro words into my journals. "Groovy" is by far my favorite. I use it ironically, of course. HA!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Gregory GarceauSince we were already middleaged in the 1980's we guess the word has been in use for some time. Groovy is a word from our youth in the 60's. Ah, we remember it well.
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1 year ago