Monday, October 30th, 2000 On the road to Spain
Up, finished packing and loaded the car before breakfast. On the way out of town we stopped at the post office to mail final postcards. Then on the road for Spain shortly after 9 am. We headed towards Orange to get the A7 to the A9…messed up getting on and ended up going south to Avignon, got off then back on and in the north direction to get to the A9 which will take us all the way to Spain. Finally on the A9 at 10 am. Sun is overcast and we got some light sprinkles but nothing serious. When we realized our wrong turn, I said that we’ve got another “silver lining”; we’ll be going into Avignon (was not in our plans as we’d been there last year). Jim’s response was that we’ve had a lot of these silver linings on this trip!
The sun came out just as we passed over the Canal de Midi! The canal we spent a week on last year! Literally, it couldn’t have timed it better. We had sun for the rest of the day!
Arrived in Spain at 1 pm. Tried to get ATM money at border but could only change some French Francs into Presado’s which are worth about 200 to $1.00. With language change we accidentally got off the autoroute just across the border. Decided the roads looked pretty good so we decided to save toll money and take the local road. Stopped at a store, found an ATM, and purchased a map with more details than the one we had. Road looks great all the way to our destination. Eventually we had to turn towards the coast, go over some mountains and finally arrived at Toss de Mar about 2:45 pm.
Tossa de Mar is a beautiful town on the coast of Spain about an hour north of Barcelona. Our hotel was easy to find and we have a room on the third floor overlooking the beach and fort. Definitely a sea resort. Number of people is light due to the time of year. People are on the beach, but those in shorts look cold as the wind is blowing even though the sun is shinning! Should be a very relaxing place to stay. Plan to drive to Barcelona tomorrow to see several sights and then return to spend the balance of time here in Tossa de Mar. Lots of shops with reasonably priced items. Found our little brown ceramic cheese dishes for about thirty-five cents each. Figure we can fit them into our suitcases as they’re so small. Also house numbers to put on the dock at home. Had a great dinner at Es Congra, fish for Jim and Pizza with salad for myself. All that with a bottle of wine for only 4300 pasada which is less than $30.00. A long walk on the beach and home to watch a little TV. Finally found BBC with some English. Makes the evening go faster. They have a series of programs that keep repeating, very similar to CNN in 1992 when we were in France. When you have no choices you ignore that fact. Tonight they have a story on Route 66 and how it is disappearing. Also, the Gore verses Bush story is big on the news. That and the bombing today in Madrid! Spain is having some internal problems!
But, we’ll be gone by Thursday. Too bad as Thursday is Market Day here in Tossa de Mar. Our room has a telephone that allows me to use MCI and also an elevator! It’s an elegant, old classic hotel with lots of charm! Very clean and the bathroom has a tub! Added plus is that the tub has a shower curtain and a great shower faucet. We even have a mini bar…added our bottle of wine to cool for tomorrow!
While driving to Spain I checked the expenses on postcards to date: Purchased 261 cards for a cost of $109. That’s about 38 cents per card. Mailed 154 cards at a cost of $93.00 which is about 60 cents per card. The balance of the cards are saved as souvenirs for a scrapbook.
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