Day 06 – Lloret de Mar to the Circuit & Back

Well here we are again.. Day 6 of the 2006 Tour, and to be honest, there's probably not a huge amount to report today, so apologies if it is all irrelevant drivel. (what do you mean "it has been for the previous 5 days, why stop now????")

So let the adventure begin then..

It started (not that excitingly) with us getting up, showering (had better, but it was hot and wet), breakfasting (without a doubt, the best coffee of the trip so far) and getting on the road by 9.50am.

Whilst the previous night hadn't been as late as Wednesday night by a long way, it wasn't that early in the end; it turned out the wireless signal was best in the bar, so that's where we ended up, and it seemed wrong to be in a bar without a beer… or 2…

So, off we pottered, leaving our luxury 5 star hotel (alas, no time to use the indoor pool, Spa or Sauna facilities this morning.).

1 minute later, and the luxury seemed hours away, as we entered what Mike has nicknamed "Chav Town". It really is incredible how far removed the hotel is from its immediate surroundings.

Still, short of driving across the sea in the opposite direction, we had no choice, so I did my best to look at the road ahead and Mike did his best to stare at the laptop, and before long, he had expertly navigated us out of this erm… lovely area.. and onto the motorway. Bliss.

The journey to the track took us about an hour – even though there are only two Formula 1 practice sessions today, it was amazing how many people were there, and we soon found ourselves sat in traffic.

But before long we had parked up, had handed over our 10 euros for the 3 day parking permit, and left the car behind, feeling sad and lonely. But not for long, as we had arranged for some of its friends to come round and play with it for the day..

So, a ten minute walk and we found ourselves entering the gates of the race track..

We had to get from the red triangle, to Grandstand 'M'. After a quick study of the map…

…Mike was soon up to speed with navigational task ahead, and he led us expertly to where we would be spending the next 3 days! (we are the right-hand section, towards the end)

The view from here is pretty good.

If you look left, you see this;

if you look right, you see this;

And I you look straight ahead, you see this!

Happy with our spot, we spent the next hour watching cars fly past – ones like this…

…and ones like this…

..and even ones like this..

Now I know what you are thinking. We were thinking the same; Surely they would be a lot safer to go round the track in the same direction?

So, who wants to see the "What happened next" picture?

Ok, here it is..

That's right, the wing mirror flew off! The brave marshal above had to play 'froggit' with F1 cars doing 200mph! Brave chap, although everyone else wanted to see what happened when a car hit the mirror at that speed I think!

So, first hours practice over, and time for lunch. A fine meal awaited us, one that challenged the 5 star meal of last night…

It wasn't even "hot"…

Still, it filled a hole, and we went for a wander, bought a few overpriced but very stylish items of clothing, then headed to a different Grand Stand to watch the second practice session (Friday's seem to be free access to any grandstand, in case you were wondering!)

From here, we could see that Scott and Barry had obviously got up earlier than the rest of us..

But fortunately, no sign of any fog, so BAR won't be able to blame poor results on comms problems this time!!

From our new spot, we had a new tele to watch..

… and some new cars to watch..

Once second practice was over, we made a sharp exit to miss the crowds, exited the circuit and headed back to the car. You can imagine how delighted it was to see us. If cars had tails, if definitely would have been wagging.

Traffic was pretty bad despite our sharp exit, so we crawled along for the next half an hour, but were soon motoring again.

Fortunately Mike had remembered the route, because the laptop charger really does seem to have thrown in the towel this time. The situation was so bad we even had to stop in "Chav Town" in the hope of finding an electrical shop. We did find one, and the guy there suggested somewhere else might have what we wanted, however half an hour later, and having driven past every shop in town at least twice, we gave up searching, went to the Super Market to get supplies for the morning, and headed back to the hotel.

Which is where you will find us now. Mike is actually asleep right now, but I may have to throw something heavy at him, as I'm extremely hungry, and a five star restaurant awaits us downstairs..


Here is our days route, albeit not exactly exciting!



Until tomorrow, goodnight

Garry and Mike