When we started this day we both said we had no desire to go into Barcelona. Traffic, expensive hotels, nowhere to camp. Who needs that, we said, we’ll just go along the seafront and camp on the otherside. Well, apparently the 50km or so of heavy traffic in the run up to Barcelona wore us down because where are we now? Yup, smack in the middle of the city in an expensive hotel. At least it has free internet! And we did enjoy a nice bit of tapas and beer in a local bar as a treat. Although we try and stick to a budget of 10 euros a day, or 20 euros if we are staying in a campground, every once in a while it does the spirit good to splurge a bit. Especially after the mess of highways and developed coastline leading up to Barcelona. It is amazing how you can take a gorgeous string of beaches and ruin them by building miles of ugly apartments parallel to them and topping it all off with a three-lane highway and no alternative minor roads. The only thing that saved our sanity was a bike path that actually ran alongside the beach about 10km outside of Barcelona. We are hoping to find the same thing leaving the city! It was also a nice treat to finally put our shorts on, after weeks of cycling through Europe in all our winter woolies.
17th December 2006 at 7:10 am #
GI682 Lloret de Mar – Palfolls Quite heavy traffic, the lead up to the N11 so don’t expect too much! There is a possible detour, albeit a hilly one, for a few kilometers through Santa Cristina and Blances. Turn left at the roundabout coming out of Lloret.
N11 Palfolls – Premia de Mar A cyclists worst nightmare at times — no shoulder and three lanes of impatient cars — and at other times busy but not too bad. When you have a shoulder, which is maybe half of the time, it’s tolerable but not a great deal of fun, although there is some very nice scenery in areas. Encouraging that there are lots of local cyclists out so at least the cars should be used to looking out for us!
Cycle path Premia de Mar – Barcelona Heaven on wheels! A dedicated cycle path on the beach, leading all the way into Barcelona. This may have started a bit before Premia de Mar but that was the first point at which we noticed it.