Sant Jordi Cambrils

... rice. We found the flamingos and they were about 30-40 m away from the road so out with the binoculars to get a better look. Such elegant birds and when they lift their wings the underside is bright pink – very pretty. We stopped at a few more look outs where we saw herons, stalks and lots of different types of ducks. At one look out we were reading ...

... the old town. The highlight of the day though was the 8Euro lunch – menu of the day. For this we got a Catalan soup which had noodles, beans, cabbage, dumplings, chicken and a few other veg. Then main course was spare ribs with sautéed onions and tomatoes, then dessert was Catalan crème, all washed down with a jug of wine ...

... a few hours. Not a hard task for them as there were plenty of cafes and shops nearby. The surf was head high but pretty gutless, not great but I never expected to get the board out in the Med so it was a real bonus.

After drying up the next priority was to find a bar showing the Barcalona vs Real Madrid football match probably the biggest game in the La Liga schedule. Not surprisingly everyone was showing the game the difficulty proved to find one ...

... magnifique! Des oliviers partout, partout, et parfois une petite maison... les gens sont très isolés ici même si la ville n'est pas si loin. Je demande mon chemin à un vieux monsieur qui m'offre gentiment de l'eau, des noix et... qui m'accompagne un bout sur les chemins pour me montrer quelle direction prendre pour ne pas me tromper. J'arrive dans les marais du Delta de l'Ebre en fin de journée ...

... tomber bientôt, mais j'aimerais faire encore quelques kilomètres aujourd'hui... je réfléchis... quand tout à coup, apparaîssent deux voyageurs sac au dos qui m'approchent et me demandent d'où je viens.. "Switzerland"... AAahh et voilà qu'ils me parlent en swizertütsch! Ce sont deux argoviens qui ont beaucoup voyagés en vélo (ils ont fait Suisse-Singapour ...

... einen Freiwasseraufstieg machen mussten. Nach dem Deco-Stop hatte ich 0 bar in der Flasche, es hat noch knapp gereicht, um das Jacket aufzublasen, sonst wäre der relative lange Rückweg an der Oberfläche sehr muehsam geworden......

In der regionalen Presse bin ich auch schon vertreten, da ich an einer Simultanschach-Veranstaltung gegen den katalanischen Meister (über 2400 Elo-Punkte) gespielt hatte, und am laengsten von 12 Teilnehmern durchgehalten hatte.

...nach dem Ärger und der Niedergeschlagenheit über den Diebstahl: Ersatz Mastercard innerhalb von 24 h aus USA erhalten (hat allerdings ca. 40 min Gespräch mit Mastercard USA und Deutschland gekostet); neues, billiges Telefon für Karin erstanden, mit spanischer Bedienungsanleitung; zwei neue Brillen für Karin...Grundausstattung ist wieder da und der Urlaub beginnt nochmal.

Über ein Tauchernetzwerk hatte ich Kontakt zu einem in Tarragona lebenden ...

... by Alex called ´boobs´. I don´t think I need to explain the rules. We then cycle on to a national park where we were hoping for a different nights sleep. Unfortunatelly, by national park they mean miles and miles paddy fields and as a result we slept in what was pretty much a car park. Although a ten kilo water melon for just over a euro takes the edge off any situation.

... very Ceuse-y vertical. Hard to read, but again that's my lack of mileage. Annoying though to be falling off, as never really pumped. Rob had an (unsuccessful) go also. Tried Annabolica (8a) after. Really bouldery moves. Very intimidated at first, all moves felt hard. Really struggled on one undercut move (something to work on at home!) but all in all, it was o.k. to there. Didn't want to ...

... drive on the C25 in the direction of Barcelona. By a rare stroke of serendipity we stumbled upon the right road and eventually reached our hotel. We resolved never again to drive anywhere we didn't really need to visit. While in Spain we found older Spanish people to be always well presented and spick and span. The gentlemen wear suits and ties no matter what the weather and the ladies wear suits and boast hairdos of startling colour and style. Their ...