Friday 29th Cambrils to Tarragona

Today's walk was just awful, not point to it at all other than a means to get to Tarragona. I think that's what happening with this part of the walk. Instead of doing the obvious thing and carrying on up the GR 7, the Catalan contingent to the design process must have felt it would be a good idea to visit some iconic Catalan locations and dragged the E4 down from the mountains to achieve that. Today it's Tarragona, in a couple of days it's Santa Joan de Mediona and then it's Montserrat.

Will have a look at rest of the GR 7 when I get home but at the moment leaving it feels like a mistake. The walk today was just an endless walk along a seaside promenade. Eventually the coastal path ran out but I missed the signs and after a series of false starts managed to get around the headland beyond the resort of Port Salou, to the next beach but GR signs and I think the path coastal path had shot of inland.

The reason was that at the end of the beach about three kilometres away, was the southern edge of the enormous Tarragona port. Behind the port was a huge chemical works. If you haven't been to Middlesbrough this won't mean anything but this is Middlesborough on the Mediterranean.

Ships at Tarragona 

There were buses at the beach end which would have taken me to Tarragona and the sensible thing would have been to get one but I just kept walking. Eventually the beach ran out and I had to head inland. There was a road which seemed to go through the chemical works and with a sense of foreboding I followed it. It just got worse and worse, smellier, busier, increasingly confined and actually dangerous. I was starting to think about retracing my steps when a man in an ancient Nissan Micra came to rescue me. The phrase don't accept lifts from strange men did spring to mind and this man was photofit strange but hey look whose talking. Anyway I got in without much hesitation, although my rucksack resisted, and he took me all the way to Tarragona, about 7 kilometres along a dual carriageway. He was very impressed that I had walked all the way from Tarifa and we shook hands at each of the five stages it took to get my rucksack, which had now made itself at home, out of the backseat and through the front door of the Micra. Another example of a friendly Spaniard/Catalan saving the day.

So I'm having a rest day in Tarragona. Was going to have a long weekend here with Christine but we decided that as she was here last week that it was a lot of travel for just one weekend. Got a bit of rescheduling to do as a consequence, as I'm actually running a bit ahead of myself.

Thursday 28th April L'Ametlla de Mer to Cambrils

Well last night was quite a night. Great fun watching the Barca win, L'Ametlla de Mer is definitely a Barca town, everyone went totally nuts, fireworks everything. And then I had a plumbing disaster.

You know sometimes the water keeps running after you have flushed the toilet, really annoying if your trying to get to sleep. Common problem, all you have to do is lift the lid and adjust the fitting where it drains from the cistern and it's sorted. That's what I did, but it didn't instantly cure the problem and I touched (no more than touched) the floating thing which controls the water coming into the cistern. It disintegrated and suddenly there is water, straight from the mains, shooting right across the bathroom. The little stop cock next to the toilet just went round and round without doing anything. It was amazing how quickly the bedroom floor was covered with water and how quickly it was going out into the hall.

Slightly panicking, I pulled my shorts on, put everything on the bed and rushed down to the porter.   He was very grumpy, watching the Mourinho interview, and was clearly the only person in L'Ametlla de Mer who was a Real Madrid fan. Eventually screaming at him had an impact and he agreed to come up and investigate. He was not happy. His tried to reconstruct the toilet mechanism but it was impossible given the force of water. He temper was not improved when I asked for another room.

After getting himself soaked he went down somewhere and turned of the water for the whole hotel and rang up the manager. The manager was clearly a Barca fan, in a good mood, accepted that I wasn't helping and found me another room.

Saw the porter this morning as I was dashing away from the hotel and he didn't seem to recognise me, fair enough, didn't need to remind him about how we had faced adversity together.

Today's walk was a 40 kilometre walk along the coastal path. I don't completely understand why the E4 comes down to the coast. It is a change but dragging you along a largely built up coast line is not necessarily the best route for a long distance walk, particularly when you could have stayed up in the mountains on Spain's oldest GR trail, the GR7.

The first bit wasn't too bad, very similar to end of yesterday's walk, along a low cliff with villas very much in the background. You then arrive at a very exclusive marina, at Sant Jordi en Alfamat, and the route is around this and through the suburbs. You then get to Calafat which has a lovely beach at the end of which is a nuclear power station and then a gas power station. Another big detour which takes you alongside a new highspeed railway line and over two motorways.

Eventually you arrive at Hospitalet de l'Infant. Originally I was going to stop there but it was only 2.30 so decided to do another 15 kilometres and make for Cambrils. The nature of development had now changed from villas to blocks of flats and these went right down to coast. Lovely beaches and nice bays but very ugly blocks of flats.

Endless blocks of flats

One thing I did find interesting interesting were the republican coastal defences dating back to the civil war, quite a lot along this stretch of coast.

Republican coastal defences

Flats were then replaced for several kilometres by caravan and camper-van sites. I thought these were nicer, very multinational with the Dutch particularly well represented. Flats re-emerged as you approached Cambrils, so many in fact that I started to wonder if there was going to be any hotels. There were of course but right in the old centre of town. I say old, a picture in reception of the hotel shows old Cambrils with just a handful of houses. The coast north and south is totally empty. The picture was taken in 1962.

Approaching Cambrils

Wednesday 27th April Amposta to L'Ametlla de Mer

The hotel I was staying in last night was a bit expensive (stretched my very tight daily budget target) but did have a buffet breakfast. The fact that I'm on the international buffet breakfast banned list doesn't seemed to have come up their computer so I was able to stuff myself before escaping down the road across the beautiful suspension bridge over the River Ebro. Eating the equivalent of four breakfasts made the room seem bigger and the bill smaller.

Bridge over the Ebro

Seem to remember that the River Ebro is the scene for a Don Quixote adventure, can't remember which one but pretty sure that he and Sancho end up in the water.

The 35 kilometre walk was very much a walk of two halves, the first across the delta to Ampolla, where you hit coast proper, and the second along a coastal path to L'Ametlla de Mer.

Although I wouldn't want to do the first half again it was interesting to do it once. It's clearly a very important agriculture area and the fields, which all have a complex set of drains, are currently mostly flooded presumably to get the nutrients and silt out of water before being planted. There were some fields of Jerusalem artichokes and fennel, the fennel was enormous much bigger than you see in the shops in the UK. I read on a board that the amount of water available from the Ebro is declining as more is taken out further upstream and that sea water and associated salination is eating its way into the delta.

Flooded fields in the Ebro delta

Artichokes

Although you were never far from the railway line and the motorway, which both run near to the coast, and villas and other residential development, the second half of the walk felt like a proper coastal path. Saw a few other walkers coming the other way, all English, but everywhere was very quite with lots of places for a swim if I had had the nerve. It was certainly warm enough, hot in fact.

Classic coastline north of Ampolla

More classic coastline

Arrived in L'Ametlla de Mer at about 4.30, staying in the Hotel del Port, near the port, where the room is unnervingly like the room I stayed in last night. It is however well inside my budget.

Big big football game here tonight and people in these parts are going to be very upset if the Catalan side doesn't win. I think they are going to be upset.