Wednesday, Excurtionistas
Today we decided to visit some of the towns along the coast toward Barcelona, we thought that we would go to Materò, then walk back along the coast to the next station on the way back,then catch the train to the next station and get off and walk again and so on until we got back to Malgrat.
Well things didn`t start too well, we got to the station and it worked out the cheapest way to do this was to get a T10 ticket for 2 zones which worked out at about €18, and me like a numpty paid for one for each of us, when we only needed one (five journeys each), still never mind, we might use them again tommorrow, we had set off early as we wanted to get to see the Roman Villa in Materò this time, we duly arrived at the town and we had great difficulty getting off the platform as the turnstiles would not accept our ticket until a guarda seguridad (railway security guard) eventualy allowed us through and explained that Materò was three zones from Malgrat and said that we woud have to purchase new tickets to return, bloody hell it looks like I have wasted £30 quid on useless tickets, we set of into the town and started heading to the Roman Villa when `er upstairs found that she was in urgent need of a loo break, so we found a nice local bar and had cafe con hielo and she made use of the lavabo, we set off again through the town and halfway to our destination, near a local contempay art gallery we were confronted by yet another noisy protest, this time against cuts being imposed on the gallery, we duly arrived at the enclosed ruins, only to find a new sign on the gates informing us that with effect from the 1st October, tours of the site would be conducted on Saturdays at noon, Buggrit! and Buggrit again, Ah well there is allways next year. so we took a different route back through the town to the railway station where we presented ourselves to the ticket clerk who remembered us from our arrival and hassle, we explained that we did not wish to go all the way back to Malgrat, but only the next town down, Oh she said your T10s can be used for that, no problem, well things were starting to look up again, so we used our tickets to gain access to the platform and caught the tran to Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, crossed under the track and onto the beach and started walking in the direction of Malgrat, it was a beautiful sandy and almost deserted beach with some magnificent beach villas and apartment blocks on the land side, as we got closer to the town centre we came to an enormous marina, filled with yatchs and pleasure craft, not a fishing or working vessel in sight, a sign of the times that we did notice, was that many of the boats were for sale, as had been quite a few villas and apartments, we continue on along the sea front passing several small exclusive beaches, one of them, the busiest was a nudist beach, we had to put our cameras away as a sign just before the beach warned us that photography from the path was forbiden and warned of dire concequenses, I had to hurry `er upstais along as she was all for going to the onto the beach to "catch some rays", my gawd ! I couldn`t inflict that sight on a bunch of innocent sunworshippers. After walking for about an hour we arrive at the next town Caldes D`Estrac, here we found another marina and many superb beachside villas, by this time we were feelling somewhat peckish and decided to go for a drink and tapas, we came to a likely looking smart hotel/resturaunt and thought, yes this looks a likely place, although there did seem to be quite a lot of local police standing around doing nothing, they would not allow us to enter the place, one of the cops pointed to a large flashy coach coach nearby, it seems that the Barcelona football team were there for lunch before us, we didn`t get to see them, but we both agreed that they like us, must have good taste to choose the same place to eat ! And so we found another nice place to eat, Jamon Iberica, Patatas Bravas and Pa tomate, (selection of Spanish hams, deepfried potato cubes in a hot spicy sauce and mayonaise and tomato bread, Mmmm! then on to the station, we decided not to get of at the next 2 stops as there are mountains between them and we really didn`t feel like any mountaineering today so we got of at the 3rd stop. Sant Pol de Mar, a lovely sleepy old Catalan town set in a valley between the hills, it is largely forgoten by tourists although it has some lovely beaches and apartments along the sea front, but none of the tacky tourist shops that are seen everywhere else, we found a super park with lots of shade from the many trees next to the river, this is another Catalan joke river with no water, piss poor fishing I would think. there are three beaches the first is the Platja del Pescadors, a little cove sheltered from the east by a high hill, this is where the local fishermen drag their boats up onto the sand, it was quite popular with the locals, we followed the road around the hill with apartment blocks built into the hillside, there were several sandy inlets between the rock outcrops with steps going down to them, almost like private beaches, further on around the hill are the main beaches, Platja del Morer, then a small rocky outcrop and the next beach on the lee of a high rocky mountain, Platja de la Roca Grossa (Grandes Rocques ?) this is another beach much favoured by nudists,and today the place of choice of mainly middle aged male couples, out of shape and condition, not a pretty sight to be frank, but there were some younger mixed sex couples, not that I was looking of course, then back to te station just in time to jump into the train which ha just arrived, we had walked onto the station from the beach and did not have time to validate our tickets at the other platform, next stop off was Pineda de Mar.where we just once again just walked of the platform onto the beach and walked the remaining four miles or so along the beach to our hotel, it was starting to cloud over by now, the weather is on the change, but no complaints from us, it was lovely and cool, we got back to the hotel, had dinner and then went to a local bar to watch Man. City get hammered by Bayern Munich, all in all another good day.