Hello, dear reader
I've relocated again. Two chilly nights in Huesca was enough for me. Nice town, but time to head to the coast.
I drove for two and a half hours last night to reach Tarragona, a port city in northeastern Spain’s Catalonia region to the south of Barcelona. I'd been informed that it's generally warmer near the coast. The first hour of my drive was through thick fog and thankfully there wasn't much traffic on the roads. The last half hour was mostly winding roads and sharp bends through mountains, then I saw the city lights spread out down below me.
I used Park4Night to find a stopping place for the night, but I didn't feel too good about the location. It felt like I was in a rough neighbourhood. After a ten minute break, I decided to leave the city and find somewhere smaller. I drove another fifteen or twenty minutes to Salou, and I'm really glad I did.
Salou is a resort town along Spain’s northeastern Costa Daurada. Park4Night guided me to this quiet street and I parked about ten metres from the beach. The temperature was a comfortable 8 degrees, compared to 2 degrees when I'd left Huesca. A bonus of this location is a public toilet a two minute walk away which stays open 24 hours and there are drinking water taps on the beach.
I phoned my Mum to say hi, made some dinner and settled down to watch the season finale of ...
Arcane
Have you been watching this show on Netflix? If you enjoy the fantasy genre and quality animation, then you should definitely check it out. Earlier this year, Squid Game caught the world's attention, becoming the most watched show on Netflix in 90 countries (deservedly so in my view). But for me, the best Netflix show of 2021 is Arcane. I won't give any spoilers, but you should know that every element of Arcane is perfect: the storytelling, the world building, the characters, the soundtrack and - especially - the artwork and animation. It's a masterpiece. 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I read last night that season 2 is already in development. My favourite character is Powder and Jinx. If that previous sentence seems grammatically awry, don't worry - it'll make sense after you've seen the show.
Treat yourself and watch Arcane at your next opportunity. Meanwhile, follow this link for a taster of the animation. All nine episodes have this quality throughout, and though I never thought I'd see animation that could match, even surpass, Into the Spiderverse, along comes Arcane!
Beach
It was a much warmer night, although perhaps I was too ambitious to sleep on top of the sleeping bag instead of inside it. I had the lamb's wool quilt on me, but that wasn't enough and at 5am I reheated the water bottle.
It was really lovely sleeping near the beach and going to sleep with the sound of the waves, a far cry from the howling winds of the Scottish Highlands on some of those evenings a few months ago.
And I woke up to warm sunshine and this view.
Tarragona
Today I'm back in Tarragona for the main purpose of using the library. It's not a fun city to drive around. Lots of very narrow streets, one way systems and almost impossible to find a parking space. In the end I drove out of the city a bit, parked and walked 2.5 kilometres back into the city to get to the library. It was lovely and sunny, but I'm guessing it'll be chilly again by the time I leave here.
On my walk to the library, I came across a cute little vegan restaurant called MeeA, so I stopped off for some food. 7.5 Euros.
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