This ferry is unlike anything you've ever seen before!

We got up and drove as soon as it was light, at about 8am. Where we are right now, sunset is at 5:30pm and sunrise is at 8:10am. 

We weren't going very far... only about 30 kms (18 miles) further inland to a little village near a castle. My thinking was that we would have some breakfast, do some computer work, visit the castle, and then do some more driving after lunch. That's not quite what happened.

Good news!

We left the university parking lot in Tarragona at about 8am. Paid the €5.95 ($8.50 CAD, $6.25 USD) at the automatic pay machine, and that was that. Nice peaceful night. Certainly a reasonable cost for 24 hours of secure parking in the city.

And, Tuesday was the Constitution Day public holiday in Spain. Oddly, Thursday will also be a public holiday. So we need to make sure we stop at a grocery store today because they will be closed tomorrow.

Busy day in Tarragona, Spain

We did an early drive down to the coastal city of Tarragona and got ourselves parked up in a paid parking area near the university... from there, it's an easy walk to go in and explore the city. We were there just before 9am.

The woman at the parking booth said that it's guarded from 8am to 10pm, but that we could stay overnight at our own risk. There are lots of security cameras as well, and we had read of other motorhomes doing the same thing, so we felt pretty comfortable.

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The medieval town of Montblanc, Spain

The weather turned out better than forecast, so we decided to stay in Montblanc a second night. This would allow us to go for a walk around the town and see what there is to see.

Montblanc is a fortified medieval town. People have been living here since around 1100... almost a thousand years!

Grocery shopping in Spain

We woke up at our gorgeous overnight spot and it was cold. -4C (25F), to be exact. I had Max's furnace set for 12C (54F) overnight, so we were comfortable enough sleeping. 

But rather than use up more propane to warm things up, we decided to drive back down to the motorhome area and empty our tanks and do some driving and let the engine heat warm us up.

A perfect overnight spot

There was clear blue sky, but it sure did take a while for things to warm up in the morning. The sun didn't come over the mountains until after 9am, and even then it took a while. 

But, we bundled up and set out on a nice hike up to some pools of water that are a popular swimming area during the summer.

Welcome to Spain!

Spain is not a new country for us. We were first in Spain in 2007 as part of a Portugal visit with Helen and Tony. Then again in early 2017 when we were here for two months doing a motorhome exchange.

This time, we plan to be here for between five and six weeks as we make out way slowly across the south of the country towards Gibraltar on our way to Morocco sometime between January 5th and 10th.

Welcome to Andorra... country number 57

Andorra is a tiny country located high up in the Pyrenees Mountains on the border between France and Spain. It is the 17th smallest country in the world. 

We came here simply to add another country to our country list. It's not really a place you would make an effort to visit unless you're an enthusiastic skier in the winter, or hiker in the summer. So we figured that since we were so close anyhow, now was the time to go!

November Expenses

We had a budget of $2,200 CAD for the month and we spent $2,287 CAD ($1,635 USD). So we're pretty happy with that.

No real surprises from an expenses perspective. We started the month in Prizren, Kosovo and ended the month in the tiny mountainous country of Andorra on the border between France and Spain.

It's finally working!

Last month around this time I told you about the Tiekom SIM card that is a great deal for European travelers.

I had ordered one of these SIM cards while we were in Albania, and had it delivered to the dealership where Max was. But they misplaced the envelope, and so we couldn't pick it up when we arrived there. However a week later they found it, and mailed it to where we were staying in France.

We went through a couple of villages where things were a little tight!

Well, we put in a good driving day on Monday. It poured with rain the whole time! We drove right by a few things that we would have normally wanted to stop and see, but there was just no point.

It was a good day to put on some miles. But when it came time to stop, things just didn't go our way.

It's honestly embarrassing...

Ruth thanks everybody for the birthday wishes. She says she had a good day! We started off by going for a hike. The weather was pleasant, calling for a high of 14C (57F), although it didn't reach that until towards the end of the day.

Obviously a busy spot for hiking. Cars started showing up just after breakfast to take advantage of a nice Sunday.

Heading south through the Rhone River Valley in France

We had a good driving day yesterday as we did about 200 kms (124 miles) through the Rhone River Valley. We are purposely staying away from mountainous areas, although the route we are taking is probably the most direct anyhow. 

There is snow at higher elevations, though it's still a little early in the season to be concerned about it. However, they do warn of needing tire chains starting November 1st, although we do not have any.

On the road again!

So, yesterday around noon I saw a postal van drive by, and minutes later the doorbell rang. Sure enough, it was the delivery we had been waiting for! A couple of hours after that, the tracking number was updated to say our package had been delivered. Too funny. There had been no updates at all since Tuesday when they said it had arrived in France. Not a great system.

But it was a little too late in the day to get any driving done. Plus, it was Black Friday so we were busy with that. Amazon had a lot of record low prices, which in times of high inflation is actually quite surprising.