Hola !

We are back to camping now, hence the internet is harder to find and this'll be a long blog, so grab a coffee and a kit-kat . . . .

We had a long day's drive from Cap D'Ail to Figueres, which is just on the Spanish border. As we were only going to stay one night there we decided to book a hostal - a double room bargain at 20 euros. After driving down an unmade track we started to question this decision and arrived just at sunset to the strangest place we have ever seen. From the outside the hostel looked like a prison block without as many windows. We were met by the very friendly host although he was dressed head to toe as a cowboy complete with stetson. He explained that we were the only people at the hostal for the night (hmm, worrying . . . ) and we'd have the run of the place as he didn't live on the premises. The hostal turned out to be an old school - two huge rooms were choc a block with bunk beds, easily 50 in a room and our 'double room' turned out to be bunk beds in what would have been matrons office, complete with en-suite disabled shower and toilet. Then 'Pedro the cowboy' left us to it and we explored the horror that was the kitchen. If it had ever been cleaned it certainly wasn't recently. There was old washing up in the sink and the fridge was full of rotting / dried up food, all uncovered. Still, having opened a bottle of wine, we managed to knock some pasta together having pre-washed all the utensils I needed ! We had a huge school style dining room to eat in, and everything echoed and then we settled into our slightly smelly bunk bed for the night. It did give us a good giggle though, to stay somewhere quite so crazy.

The next day, and the reason for our stop at Figures, we went to the Dali museum. He was a pretty eccentric guy and there were some very different pieces of art and 'sculpture' to look at. James wasn't overly impressed and is remaning a Picasso fan. We then drove on down to Camping Barcelona - one of the best campsites we have had so far in terms of ammenities and service. It's about half an hour from Barcelona but there is a free daily shuttle in, as well as a twice hourly shuttle to the nearest town, Mataro, a lively and well priced bar and restaurant, fully stocked supermarket, petting area complete with donkeys, chickens, goats and sheep . . . .

We went into Barcelona and did most of the major sites in a day, we were very impressed by Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, still unfinished. Not so impressed with Park Guell as we found out you now have to pay to see all the major parts and we weren't willing to part with the cash having expected a park to be free. The waterfront and Las Ramblas made for a lovely walk and we went out to the Nou Camp, home of Barca FC and got tickets to see them play Celta de Vigo on Wednesday night. That was a great match, despite being right up at the top of the stadium (it seats 99,000 people) - the home crowd had nothing on the Portsmouth fans but it was still a great experience and seeing such top quality players too - we were delighted they won 3-0. The match finished around ten so we walked back into the city and it was buzzing despite being a Wednesday. We were then able to get the 12.15 night bus back to the campsite, only 4 euros each - they really make the transport easy for tourists / campers - the night bus runs til 4am. It was a shame we didn't have the chance to make more of this.

We were joined at the campsite by two young French guys and a bloke from Denmark and gathered all together for a couple of good evenings sitting around our camp bbq / fire - I cooked omelette for us all one night and we all drank sangria and whiskey supplied by the 'Frenchies' (as we called them as neither of us could pronounce their names) We had a real mix of weather whilst we were here, from baking hot sunshine to thunderstorms and plenty of rain (especially all during the football which was uncovered !)

Yesterday we drove down and are now just outside Valencia. This area is incredibly popular with the retired British who drive down for the winter here in their campervans. The first site we went to was horrific, just row upon row of campervans on hard standing pitches and plenty of fat sunburnt bellies on show in the sunshine - we called it a campervan council estate and had to move on !! Luckily we found a far better site nearby, although still full of English and every time we sit outside the tent someone stops for a chat / interrogation ! (it's quite nice really, apart from one guy who stopped this morning and said 'when did you arrive, I didn't see that, there was a caravan here, blah blah as if we should have checked in with him first and were personally responsible for the caravan leaving. It's curtain twitching campervan styleee !!)

Anyway, the site is ok and we will stay another couple of nights and then move a little inland as we fancy some mountain camping.

Love to you all, and Happy Mothers Day for Sunday to our mums x x x