Sitting here in the cafe, 2 minutes from the Hostal Bonaire (Euro 39 for a single room) where we are going to spend the night. We left Javea yesterday around 1 pm and drove up the A7. We were just curious about the toll and ended up paying Euro 6.20 and Euro 17.75 plus another Euro 1.20 to exit just around Tarragona. We decided to explore the mountain areas and ended up in a hostal in the small medieval town of Montblanc where a single room cost only Euro 25.00 and a double room was Euro 42.00. We walked around the town which is completely encircled by walls and medieval watchtowers. Quite interesting, but very small. Having dinner was another thing, we were ready to eat by about 8 pm, but no chance, none of the restaurants would open before 9:00 pm so we ended up eating a bocadillo (sandwich) at a bar on the main square. This morning we had a nice little breakfast on the main square at the same place. It was market day today and all sorts of merchants were selling various types of merchandise from portable stands. Our breakfast was lovely, tea plus 2 of the freshest croissants we had ever tasted. We then made our way through the mountains past Valls into the area of Montserrat, which is an absolutely fascinating area. We ended up spending the entire afternoon at the Monastery of Montserrat, checked out the basilica, were astounded at the various modes of transportation one could use to get up to the monastery, ie. the road with Euro 4 for parking, a pin and racket railroad and an aerial tram. The mysterious jagged mountains of Montserrat. Plus we took a funicular to the top of the mountain to Sant Joan and walked around at the top of the serrated mountains. What a gorgeous view! We also walked up to the right to a little chapel (I guess the Chapel of Sant Joan). Right beside it was an abandoned villa / restaurant that was glued against the mountain. It pretty much lay in ruins and I wondered what must have happened to this rather mysterious place... After Montserrat we drove down to the coast and we decided to spend our last night on the mainland in Sitges, a really beautiful town about 50 km southwest of Barcelona, right on the Mediterranean. We went to the tourist office to get our accommodation information and then drove down to the beach where we had to park quite far away from the downtown. Parking is definitely an issue here. We booked into the Hostal Bonaire right downtown, 2 single rooms at Euro 39 each, not bad for a beautiful beach town. Not fancy, but clean and with private baths. Now we are gonna head out for dinner. After about 4 to 5 hours of walking today we are pretty tired and hungry.... Tomorrow its off to Ibiza where we are going to have a more relaxing week. |
