We had a plan. Breakfast at the campsite’s cafe by the reception, walk to Bot and check out the town’s market, walk back and head off.
So we wandered down to the cafe only to find that dogs weren’t allowed inside – it was quite chilly and not conducive for sitting outside. So we knocked that idea on the head and decided to walk into town as planned. We’ll get breakfast in Bot. We walked along the road and up the hill, passing the chicken farm (urgh) and found the streets eerily quiet. We came up to the little square with a little cafe to one side, but still a severe lack of townspeople hauling bags and trolleys full of produce. We looked down side streets and alley ways for any signs of a bustling market and eventually resorted to asking a passing lady who pointed us in the right direction. Following her instructions, we came up to a covered area featuring a single fruit and veg stall lining the back wall and another stallholder just starting to unload boxes of shoes on trestle tables and that, ladies and gentlemen, was Bot’s market.
So not quite the bustling market we had hoped for, so we wandered back to the little cafe and ordered a consolatory croissant, a pain au chocolate sort of cake and two coffees – total cost 6.60 euros. The coffee was very strong, enough to put hairs on your chest and we mused that throughout France and Spain we hadn’t seen any decaf coffee advertised. Was it just not in their vocabulary, a complete and utter abomination to coffee drinkers, more of a cosmopolitan thing or we were just too wimpy to ask for it? Most likely the latter.
With nothing else to do, we wandered down to the old railway line – we had discovered another way back to the campsite avoiding the road while having coffee. Here, out of the blue were some information boards describing Bot’s chequered history in several languages and a fancy set of brick steps leading down to the station – in total contrast to the town itself which, on the face of it seemed just an ordinary rural Spanish village getting on with life and not being a particular tourist attraction.
The disused railway had been converted into a pathway, the old station in disrepair which was a shame – it would of made a lovely residence or a brilliant cafe stop. There were big bill boards announcing some form of regeneration here, but apart from the gravelled path and another new building, nothing much else had happened – it just felt that this part of town had been forgotten, though we reminded ourselves that we were deeply out of season and it may be a different story in high summer. With this path connecting with the campsite, maybe the local planners had something special in mind and on the verge of executing their vision.
So we followed the path back to the campsite which was lovely, looking across the valley and the mountains in the distance. Once back, we packed up the Van and headed off as we had a lunch date booked. We were in a fantastic mountain region and we followed some fantastic roads through some incredible valleys and wooded hillsides. This was wine and olive country with rows of vines and orchards of olive trees on the higher reaches. We passed small communities perched on hillsides, which seemed to be miles from their neighbouring counterpart, their houses cascading down on top of one another – some half built and seemingly abandoned, others just falling into disrepair while others were well kept and looked after. It was just a strange scene repeated in every community.
We had chosen the longer route that was offered by the satnav which was fabulous and had us gasping in awe as we rounded corners. This was probably the best day scenic wise and we loved every minute. And then the road started to narrow – it was an ordinary two way road wheedling through the mountains, but both lanes narrowed considerably so our Van straddled the white line in the middle as did the oncoming traffic (of which there was very little, thank goodness). Basically there was nowhere to go if we met anyone – we had thick metal barriers on our side, protecting us from a precipitous drop and the opposite side alternated between barriers or a rock face, though it did have a channel/gutter to drop into. Luckily we met other vehicles at points where the road widened slightly and we slowed down accordingly whereby the other motorist was either supremely confident of his width or didn’t know what brakes were for. With raised eyebrows we waited for either a scraping down the side of the Van or my wing mirror pinging off and flying into the abyss, but in reality, there was probably acres of space – its just alarming to find a speeding Seat flying round a blind corner.
We found ourselves at our destination of Gratallops, in the heart of the wine country. It was Hubby’s birthday and we decided to treat ourselves. We parked in a dusty car park behind a cafe and as we were getting organised, a huge cement lorry parked next to us. Eeek. We wandered through the deserted town which seemed to have its fair share of wine cellars and restaurants. We found our particular place with huge plate glass windows framed in wood and introduced ourselves. We had booked a wine tour and was taken into the small fermentation room with huge metal vats by Jessica who gave us a talk about the region and how the cellar started (a former chicken factory of which there were many working ones scattered along our journey today). She then took us down a metal spiral staircase into the actual vaulted cellar where the oak casks laid on their side. It was very interesting.
We went into the restaurant and enjoyed a lovely three course meal with a glass of wine and got chatting with a couple of Swiss ladies who made a fuss of The Pup and who knew our part of North West England well. It’s amazing what you learn from people. We thanked our hosts for their hospitality and wandered around the town and back to the Van. We hadn’t booked anything for tonight so after a quick look on our phones, settled on a place just south of the town of Ulldemolinas and headed there. Another 45 minutes and lots of winding mountain roads (and more gasping at scenery and fast oncoming vehicles) we arrived at Montsant Park Camping. Hubby went to check in and was faced with a non English speaking receptionist – with a mixture of fingers indicating the number of adults and by pointing at our parked van, he was getting away with it until he came to mentioning the Pup. His limited Spanish (like me) deserted him completely as he tried to think of the Spanish word for dog and with delightful quick thinking, just said “woof” to the lady and bless her, she understood completely and booked us in.
We have been a bit all over the place linguistically in Spain for several reasons. Firstly, our Spanish comes from the classroom from many years back which we can’t remember much of, secondly we’ve been in France and had got fairly comfortable mangling French and now have been thrown with the sudden change of language and thirdly, after getting confident to blurt out a stuttering sentence, the Spanish reply in English (are we that crap?) and fuse a few brain cells. So instead of saying “Si” we say “Oui” and many other French phrases and when we not looking completely blank, we manage to reply using all three languages simultaneously in one sentence (which is quite a talent and one which Hubby excels at). It doesn’t help that Catalonia has its own distinct dialect so our strangled Spanish sounds nothing like how the locals speak. We’ve got away with it with a lot of hand gestures and if necessary bark.
We found a pitch opposite a row of caravans with awnings attached that had evidently been parked there for many months, presumably as an alternative to buying a static caravan or lodge. It was gone five as we plugged in electric and turned on the gas and by the time we had fielded family phone calls sending birthday wishes, the light was going. We didn’t make tea – we were still full from lunch and settled down to write blogs and to find campsites for tomorrow. We’ll probably book two nights – the laundry bag is overflowing again and the Van could do with a bit of clean. A bit of a reset is overdue.
