L’Estartit.

Beautiful sunny start to the day and another fantastic view.

How lucky are we to have been treated to such fabulous sights first thing in the morning? As we eat our breakfast we can hear a machine harvesting grapes on the nearby vines.

As we left the aire we saw a farmer with his trailer loaded with grapes outside the nearby factory.

Today’s drive is down to the L’Estartit, a coastal resort on the Costa Brava. But first there’s mountains to cross, we just can’t seem to escape them, and now we dread the long declines as well as the ascents, Marge is an old van with good, but old brakes. But that aside, we have seen some stunning views.

As we approached the lower levels towards the coast we were reminded we were in Catalonia, the Catalonian flag was flying everywhere, it showed you how many people in this area wanted to be independent.

Arriving at the campsite among the pine trees, we could not believe it was a year ago we had driven here with our tent, and loved it so much we ended up staying a week. The site is 100 metres from the town and 300 metres from the vibrant blue sea of the med.

Early this evening we took a walk out to the small beach on the edge of town.

There were no tables at the beachside bar, but the Spanish lady owner not wanting to lose custom hastily brought out a folding table and a couple of chairs for us. The temperature here is over 30c, so the cold lagers were most welcome. However the noise from a nearby Spanish family was not. All the adults were trying to out do each other by talking louder, and the children kept screaming, if only we could all do what John did and take out our hearing aids.

On the way back to the site we spotted an inflatable pink flamingo in a shop, we’re thinking of buying it for our brother in law Peter, who enjoyed a holiday recently involving one!

We plan to stay here for a couple of nights, but we may stay longer, as we still have two weeks until we need to be back at Dieppe for our ferry.

We have just heard from someone else's conversation that there is a big pirate festival in the town this weekend, and that a large pirate boat will be arriving in the marina tomorrow.  Probably why we had seen piles of various props around the town.