We headed out, but not very far!

Still dealing with some showers throughout the day yesterday, but at least the temperatures are decent. It's supposed to hit 20C (68F) today, and we no longer have to use the furnace in the evening. Forecast for the next week calls for lots of sunshine, so we are finally into some decent weather.

We said goodbye to hosts Mirella and Bart, and of course Diezel the dog. And we headed out... but not very far!

Back on the road

The rain stopped yesterday morning and we finally made it out for a walk around the neighborhood. The area we are staying is called an "urbanización". There are hundreds of these types of developments in Spain. 

They are essentially private communities, normally located outside of a town with monthly fees that go towards maintenance and public areas. 

Through the ages...

We never left the house yesterday. It drizzled with rain the entire day! So rather than show you photos of us at our laptops, or us playing backgammon, we'll take this opportunity to show you some photos that you've never seen before!

We met in March of 1983, and by September of that year we did our first trip together... to England!

Thinking we might have to put a fire on!

It turned into a beautiful blue sky day with a high of about 17C (63F), but it was really windy which kind of took away from what was otherwise a really nice day.

Our plan was to get out for a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon, but we just never got to it!

Arrived at our house sit assignment

We still had a couple of hours to drive to get to our house sit location, and we had to do a big grocery shop along the way. 

I saw a big Mercadona grocery store in the next town only 6 kms away from where we had spent the night, so we decided to go there first and get that done.

What's the plan for this winter?

Yesterday was a bit of a dreary day with rain on and off, although the temperature was warm enough. Things look like they're improved this morning though, with some blue sky peaking through. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice though, with a high of 20C (68F). Not quite shorts and t-shirt weather, but we're getting there.

We did some driving to get closer to our house sitting assignment. Still about two hours to go today, but that's fine because they don't want us to arrive until 4:00pm.

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!