We finally left Benicassim and headed north towards an Aire near a vineyard …. Sounded perfect as we needed some more wine, however when we arrived the Aire wasn’t where the GPS said it should be so, as it was only 4pm we thought we could either search around a bit further, or head on to Palamos. Palamos is where we had originally planned on going but thought 400km was a bit far to drive in one day, however faced with the dilemma we called ahead to ensure that they had space and following a positive response, decided to hit the road again.

As we drove north the skies got darker, the temperature started to drop and just as we passed Barcelona it started to hail, then sleet – dropping the temperature down to 4 degrees….. a lovely welcome to the area, we knew it would be colder, but ouch….

The sleet was sitting on the road and there was snow up in the hills….. we were both wondering why we left the sunshine in Alicante!!

However as we got closer to Palamos we did come out the other side, and although it was only 7 degrees it had at least stopped sleeting. The Aire (Empordarea – 10 euros a night inc. elec) is fairly new, has good clean facilities and is located 1km from the beach…. Not bad at all.

Sunday was Keith’s Birthday …. So it was quite nice that we didn’t have to drive anywhere. We had a mooch around town in the morning to check out the patisseries – which are of a pretty high standard for Spain – just a shame that we decided to wait until the afternoon to buy something as they were all shut by then …. I am a rubbish wife, not a birthday cake (or anything that resembled one) in sight L … we settled for a bit of Turron (Nougat) instead. We did head out to a local bar watch the Madrid game after dinner … so apparently all was not lost 🙂

Keith has also started to diversify in his skills, my brother had kindly ordered me a new laptop battery as the old one is now only lasting 2 hours so, with the help of a couple of videos on YOUTUBE he managed to take the laptop apart, replace the battery and put it together again with no screws to spare …… I think he may have hidden them somewhere. It appeared to be working yesterday… although I have just realised that it isn’t taking the charge ….. hmmmm, not going to help when we don’t have electricity – time for a new plan, looks like the battery is faulty 😦

We woke to heavy rain on Monday morning which continued until about 4:30 in the afternoon … proper wet stuff, although you would be proud, I did manage to still go for a run despite coming back looking like a soggy dog. For once, we weren’t too disappointed about spending slightly more time inside the motorhome whilst the rain continued to fall as we had so much catching up to do with finances, research and emails having spent the last few weeks out and about a bit more than normal.

Our neighbours (Emma and Paul) had invited us over for a late afternoon drink so we could catch up on some places in Italy ….. I wouldn’t mind, but we didn’t go into much detail on Italy, so not quite sure where the the time went and how it suddenly become 1:30am????

What a lovely impromptu evening with a little too much wine, sherry and port. Nice to meet another couple who are roughly the same age and also into walking, cycling and running …. Apparently we aren’t the only mad ones out here 🙂

So, this is our farewell to Spain for now, tomorrow we plan to cross over into France in transit to Italy. Yet again we have had a great time and despite the last couple of days, we have been really lucky with the weather. We will miss the tapas, Rioja and extra-large gin and tonics …. but are ready to take on a bit of Chianti, Pizza, Pasta and antipasti 🙂