Day 05 – San Sebastian to Lloret de Mar
Welcome to Day 05 – now officially to be known as "The extended Tour de la Liberation – one that has nothing to do with the original Tour" or TETDLLOTHNTDWTOT for short.
This is where we say goodbye to the rest of the competitors and go it alone; no clues, no prizes, no points - indeed, no point you may be thinking – but please feel free to continue following our progress over the next few days. We'll try and make it marginally interesting for you!
After finally getting our heads down at 5am, we decided to have a lie-in, so Mikes alarm woke us up at 9am – which we duly ignored for an hour.
A quick shower later, and we were to be found at the Breakfast table, drinking decent coffee and in my case, eating cocopops, that well known traditional Spanish Breakfast.
After a brief chat with some of the other competitors that were just rising from their pits, having had equally late nights (although theirs was for alcohol related reasons rather than because they were doing website updates..), we packed up our bags, checked out, and said goodbye to Benny, Bjorn, Frida, Agnetha…
..and made our way to the carpark, to see if by any chance my car might actually still be available for our use.
As luck would have it, not only was it still there, it had even been cleaned…
..overnight parking and cleaned inside and out, all for 30 euros… what more could a boy want!
The next 407miles and 2 tanks of fuel saw us passing through plenty of these…
..giving money to plenty of these..
..crossing a few of these…
..and even said Hi to a few of these…!
At one point, we even passed this…
By mid morning when we stopped for the first tank of fuel and cup of coffee, we were here. (The big hand is pointing where we started on Sunday morning… and the errrr big hand is pointing at where we stopped for coffee and fuel!)
Lunch consisted of a pleasant sandwich type thing in another motorway station a couple of hundred miles further up the road, although we didn't really have much idea what we had ordered.
Mind you, the alternative was here, so we should be grateful really..
Upon arrival in Barcelona..
…we kept going.
Its ok, we intended to, it wasn't due to a Sat nav problem. Mind you, whilst the Computer had behaved itself for hundreds of miles of straight motorways (when it would be quite difficult for even us to take a wrong turn), as soon as we got near the complicated stuff, it started getting up to its usual tricks and one or two words were had!
However, Mike cleverly managed to coax it along on its feeble little battery until we drew up to our luxury 5 Star hotel accommodation for the next three nights.
Just prior to arriving at the hotel, we weren't hugely impressed by the area – well this is the Costa Brava after all…
However, we soon changed our minds when we saw that the place was so up-market, they supplied parking for all modes of transport.. (we presume the paraglider was on final approach..)
The view directly out of our room wasn't that incredible..
However, a quick glance down soon tipped the balance back in its favour..
A walk around the terrace, and we did actually discover the real beauty of this place…
We had a most pleasant (if slightly expensive) meal in the restaurant.
Mind you. at one point Mike spotted a lizard up amongst the foliage that decked the ceiling of the restaurant, and assumed it was a decorative touch. However, ten minutes later it had mysteriously changed positions. It was at this point we both studied it a little more carefully, and saw it lift its tail, squeeze and "pop" something out, which landed on the floor just in front of our table. I kid u not.
You will be delighted to hear that this hotel has free Wifi – which more than makes up for the lizard episode, although the signal is not quite strong enough to work from our room, so we'll be the suspicious looking pair stood on the landing holding a laptop!
Finally, as we know you have been waiting all day for this, here are the answers to yesterdays chocolate quiz;
1) A kind of Voo-doo = BLACK MAGIC
2) Time of Day = AFTER EIGHT
3) Subject of Conversation = TOPIC
4) Clever Clogs = SMARTIES
5) Entirely Metallic = ALL GOLD
6) Neighbouring Planet = MARS
7) These may live on an island = MALTESERS
8) North Country Terrier = YORKIE
9) A good address = QUALITY STREET
10) A young pet = KIT KAT
11) Parties = CELEBRATIONS
12) An old sailing Ship = BOUNTY
13) In between = TWIX
14) Flowers = ROSES
15) A crisp apple is this = CRUNCHIE
16) Xray bodi (anagram) = DAIRY BOX
17) Glad tidings = GOOD TIMES (we got this one wrong – has anyone ever heard of it?)
18) Cinderella's butler = BUTTONS
19) The centre of our galaxy = MILKY WAY
20) Pingu is one = PENGUIN
And now, without further ado, here is todays Route, and all that remains is for us to bid you all a goodnight.
Buenas Noches
Garry and Mike