On leaving Sitges, we headed down the picturesque N340 for a grand total of 43km until we parked up at a commercial Aire – Area 340- at Creixelles. A nice little spot, with basic services, amongst the pine trees, and only 50m from the beach. The youngish fella that appeared to be running the gaff, stepped out of his humble abode i.e the office -though we suspect he was actually living there,-took our parking fee of €10, gave us the WiFi code, turned on his Christmas lights ( really quite pretty),  watered his plants and we never actually saw him again after that – although someone closed the gates that night and re-opened them the next morning! We shared the entire Aire with only two other vans – both Spanish ! Where are all The Brits??

We took advantage of the fact that we were only 50m from the beach and headed off for our daily constitutional. Harley has suddenly become a keen swimmer – he was always a tad nonplussed by the water but we can’t keep him out of it nowadays! Pretty much all the beaches over here have signs saying “No Dogs” but, at this time of year, this is blatantly ignored – thankfully- so we can roam at will and Harley can get his almost daily swim- Happy Days!

The next morning we did a “huge trek” – all of 22km – to Tarragona. I have to admit, my knowledge of Spain and all things Spanish has been sadly lacking and Tarragona really meant nothing to me until I read Lonely Planet Guide’s take on it! Full of Romanesque architecture, remains of an amphitheatre, city walls – bring it on! There’s no official Aire in Tarragona and the nearest known tolerated “wild camping” spot we could find was 5km north of the town! We took a chance and parked up alongside the promenade at The Miracle beach – having “not seen” the “no motorhome or caravan parking” sign! We spotted a couple of vans parked up and thought “hell, if they can do it, so can we”.

 

Whilst we were out mooching around the Roman ruins, Sebo met a comrade – the ancient German van parked behind us and, upon our return, he introduced us to it’s owner who assured us that overnight parking here is tolerated as he had been here for several days and, despite the local police driving past on a regular basis, they had not moved him on. An interesting German dude who loved a chat in English( he had excellent English yet kept apologising when he couldn’t find the right word! Errrr, Hellloooo! We have about two words of German between us and one of those is Ausfahrt!!!)- he’d been on the road since September since the death of his beloved 11 year old Rottweiler and, like us, his only plan is having no plan! His only advice to us was that if we wanted to stay overnight in that particular spot, we should be aware that with the railway on the one side and the crashing Med waves on the other, it may not be the quietest night we’d ever have. We have earplugs – who cares! We were just relieved that we’d found a spot close to the town where we could kip for the night for Free! We made the most of it and, having made sure Harley was well-walked , fed and watered, we put on our gladrags and headed out for a bite to eat.

One thing had us puzzled on arrival here this morning – it’s a Tuesday, in December, yet there’s like a ridiculous number of folk ( and families with school age children!) milling around the seafront. OK, the sun is shining but, hell, we’re in Spain so what’s new?? Further research revealed that Dec 6th is, in fact, Constitution Day and, thus, a Public Holiday!! So THAT explains that then! Mental note to actually learn a bit more about the countries we’re visiting!