There are beaches to the north of Tarragona, and the historic town has very special Roman ruins and beautiful and narrow old streets. But to the south lies the modern port, plus chemical industries and oil refineries. That would be our territory to start off with today.
In the harbour, boats that look big and fancy to us. Are they ferries that can carry us to exotic destinations across the Med, or could they be Russian oligarch yachtsÉ
According to Google, this boat is not about to be ferrying Grampies and their dusty bikes anywhere soon. Reason: It's 91m megayacht Lady Lara, owned by Kazakh billionaire Alexander Machkevitch. Built by Lurssen, the megayacht has the exterior and interior design from Reymond Langton. Lady Lara's alluring amenities include VIP suites with fold down balconies, a large beach club, a gym, Jacuzzi, a swimming pool and a helipad. (No mention of a bike rack!).
With N-340 you get to visit BASF chemical plants! BASF has had a lot of marketing slogans over the years, like "At BASF, we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better." But these buildings all were slathered with "We Create Chemistry", an upgrade from "The Chemical Company".
The fight with traffic basically ended for this day when we reached Port Aventura amusement park, outside of Salou. We only saw a bit of it, but we could guess the scale from the parking lots and the number of people walking in.
The slogan on the tourist little train is "Europe's Beach". That is at least supported by us hearing English, French, and German spoken by the people around.
While most of what you see in Salou is beach and apartments, I did spot the building below, which is Casa Bonet:
"Built by Ciríac Bonet in 1918, it is the work of the architect Domènec Sugranyes i Gras, a disciple and collaborator of Gaudí. It is an example of the late modernist style and one of the most emblematic buildings in the city. On the main façade, a sundial with ceramic pieces and neo-Gothic letters sums up the philosophy of life: “make the most of the time that passes and does not return”. Although access is not permitted, the mural decoration by the painter Agustí Ferrer is preserved inside, of which the one on the ceiling of the dining room stands out, where the departure of King James I from the beach of Salou to conquer Mallorca is depicted."
There was also an olive orchard along side. Some harvesting was taking place today. We didn't see the tree being shaken, so we don't know the technique, but the olives are gathered below in nets. These were then rolled up and taken away by the tractor.
Of all the Eurovelo routes, EV8 is the most prone to 'hallucinations", in which it shunts you off somewhere for unknown reasons. In this case, we were kind of glad to leave N340, and down we went.
But along here we came to an EV 8 ism we remembered from last year. It wants you to go in that hole. You then get to push along the beach, I recall, before pushing on out, on a rough track.
We were standing eyeing the hole and wondering if we should go for it, when this lady happened along. We think in Spanish she was trying to tell us the area might be flooded. We weren't quite following. But somehow a clue dropped that we could both speak French, and then a flood of information flowed, in both directions. Not only did the lady advise us to bypass the EV8 trap, but she assured us we would reach our destination easily on N340. I then made the "error" of asking her how she came to speak French, and this elicited her complete life story, starting with her birth in Valencia, marriage and years in Paris, return to her family here in retirement, and the fact that she does all the cooking and cleaning in the house of her relatively lazy son here. Don't get me wrong, it was fun talking to the lady, and we appreciated her warm closing best wishes for our trip.
As promised, we arrived easily and early at our hotel Sancho in l'Hospitalet de l'Enfant. I have time to read our previous blog, and to learn what is coming next. For example, are those mountains visible from our balcony going to give us grief? But reading ahead like that can spoil the fun, which is supported by the fact that without the blog we can't remember a shocking amount about past trips.
The view from our balcony. Are those mountains trouble?
