Sept 26th and 27th

Sorry for the delay in posting. We’ve had little or no internet access and multiple issues with blogger. Please forgive all the weird stuff going on with the blog (like different colored text, etc.). This is the view from our 3rd floor terrace. I came up here to have my tea this morning.

We had the standard Spanish breakfast of ham, prosciutto and "meats".

These were sausages made from liver in the middle, blood sausage on the right and the other pig parts (ear, feet, etc.) on the left. The hostess told Kim, very good, you must try. He did. 😝

And always the selection of warm bread.

Steve from catalan adventures picked us up at our hotel and took us to the Figueres train station.

Where we had booked our rental car. After much confusing Catalan/English conversation, we were off.

We drove by the Salvador Dali museum.

Notice the eggs on top and the bread figures on the sides.

The scenery today is quite different from what we've seen the last few days. The plan today was to drive along the base of the Pyrenees to the northern coast of Spain. After driving for two hours on very winding roads and not seeing anything but trees, we decided this wasn't the best route to take if we wanted to get anywhere today, so we backtracked a little and headed to the autovia to make better time. 

Kim had a snack of assorted olives from the supermerket. Yes, that's the way it's spelled over here.

More orchards.

And corn fields.

After another 5 hours of driving, we found a petrol station with a big information center, food and free wifi. I got online and booked us an apartment for the night in Logrona, another 1 1/2 hours away. We shared a lunch of sausage and frites. It wasn't great but we were starving after 7 hours and this was lunch and dinner.

You just can't get away from these things!

This is the apartment. Kind of a long story, but getting here was interesting. We realized when we arrived at the city centre that espolon wasn’t an actual address, just the plaza. After driving and then wandering around the plaza several times looking for the apartment and talking to a couple of people including a policeman, we realized we needed to reach the owner. I sent him a text and this is what I received in reply: Hola soy José del estudio de Logroño, sobre que hora llegaréis. Quedamos en Muro de cervantes 1 Por favor avisame 20 minutos antes de llegar, gracias. So apparently Jose from estudio centro said he would meet us at Muro de cervantes 1 in approximately 20 min. It was already 10:30 pm and we had no idea where that address was. We found a street map on the plaza (espolon) and managed to make our way to the address. It was locked with no one in sight so I just stood outside the door and waited while Kim drove around because therebwasbnonplace to park. Finally I see a young man with a motorcycle helmet running toward me and calling my name. He got in the car with us and tried to find us a parking place. We finally found one several blocks away. After we parked, he drug us down to a machine a couple more blocks away where he entered our license plate number and various other info so it spit out a parking ticket letting us know we had until 9:15 am to park for free. I might add that he spoke NO English and walked like he was in a race. It would have been pretty comical if we hadn't been so tired.

The apartment was really nice and clean but had no air conditioning or wifi. 

Interesting sculptures in the apartment

There was a washing machine under the kitchen sink and if it hadn't been 11 o'clock when we got there we could have washed our clothes and hung them out to dry. 

Door to the apartment.

Alley where the apartment was located. It was late and dark  when we got there, but there were little bars open to the alley with people hanging around so we weren't too concerned about being drug down an alley by a stranger in Spain. 😀

Landmark in front of which we parked our car.

Kim said he thinks Spain has Switzerland beat on the number of tunnels.

Some were quite long and others very short.  

We stopped at this outlet mall to find some breakfast and get some information.

Breakfast wasn't so good and they had zero information. 

On our drive to Gorbea national forest we saw these beautiful cows with quite loud cowbells.

Walking into the park.

Your guess is as good as mine.

This is the longest concrete picnic table I've ever seen.

Chestnuts - unshelled

And shelled  

Inch worm  

The park was beautiful and a nice little side trip on our journey.

One of those short tunnels

The bulls of pamplona, I presume.

We arrive in the remote area called Playa de Aguilar, where  we are staying tonight and this is the view from our window at the hotel.

Another view. You can't see it but there's a stream down there that sounds like a waterfall.

Our room with the window wide open to listen to the waterfall.

A wall of hydrangeas outside our window.

Just down from the hotel. This is the Cantabrian sea.

Looking for cool rocks

These pics are of the teeny tiny fishing village of Cudillero on Spain's north coast.

The houses appear to be hanging on the side of the rock mountain.

Crystal clear water

No overtaking (passing).

At dinner, the waiter brought out a small loaf of bread and just laid it on the table cloth next to my plate. Think he knows me?

I ordered the asturian bean stew.  It was very good.

Kim ordered the asturian burger.

We're off to bed now. We've gotten very little sleep on this trip. beds and pillows are hard as a rock!