Today we had one goal, to lie in the sun and do something about our pasty Melbourne winter skin. The shuttle to the airport was picking us up at 3:50pm so we had most of the day to relax by the pool before our flight to Barcelona that evening.
The flight from Palma to Barcelona is quick, as soon as you reach altitude you start to descend again. I barely had time to work on my crosswords and Sarah was frustrated because she just wanted to keep reading her book, the troubles we face!
Having booked our accommodation through flight centre we thought we were in good hands. She booked us into "Hotel Porta De Barcelona" which based on the map looked like a good location. To see a map of the area she must have googled the location "Porta De Barcelona" (without the word "hotel") which is on the bay just outside the city centre, a great location to base yourself in. HOWEVER! The HOTEL PORTA DE BARCELONA is in fact at a truck stop service centre on the side of the highway an hour out of Barcelona! Not impressed!!!
The look of "why are you here for two nights?" on the face of the lady at reception said it all, there was literally nothing here. A highway on one side and a rail yard on the other, the only food was the truck stop cafe, that was it! She sympathised with our situation and went out of her way to show us how we could make the best use of our time, including what we should see and what we shouldn't bother with. It's just so nice when someone genuinely cares about the circumstances of their guests and goes beyond the "script" to help them out.
So our plan was in place, up early tomorrow to make it a full day in Barcelona.
Before bed however we started looking at the next leg of our journey. We were picking up the car on Thursday and given that our Barcelona experience isn't shaping up as what we'd hoped for we've decided we'll head 1.5hrs south from Barcelona to Tarragona in the Province of Catalunya and spent 3 nights by the sea. After a quick search of hostels we've booked a bungalow in the camp grounds just outside Tarragona, the ocean only 50 meters away. At only AU$53 per night for our own bungalow (like a perfect little granny flat) this was value for money, we'll be searching for this type of accommodation as often as possible as we drive back up and along the French coast.