I kept trudging on and made distance my priority for the time being as I wanted to reach into Catalonia the next day. The price I had to pay for that was being pulled back and forth by the wind around lorries and cars. Not very pleasant I can assure you.
I spent a rainy day crossing farm country under heavy, dark skies and reached Ulldecona in the autonomous community of Catalonia just as the sun broke through the clouds. I had a swim in the hostal pool before having dinner and a stroll in the village.
I made an early start from Ulldecona on yet another beautiful morning. The stage began with a steep climb up through a ravine to the top of the mountains facing the Mediterranean Sea overlooking the Ebro delta.
The source of the river Ebro is in the autonomous community of Cantabria in the far northwest of Spain and it mouths right here in the province of Tarragona, forming a wide delta. This delta provides a habitat for many different types of birds and amphibians and is also a very popular recreational area for everything from bird watching to kite surfing, and it is world famous for its large-scale rice production. Yep, Spain is a major rice exporter. The sediment that the river carries in its flow is set off just outside the mouth of the delta forming a big sand island with a strange shape. The views from up the mountain are breathtaking and very hard to take ones eyes off.
My resting place for the day was a business hotel in the center of Amposta just a few hundred meters from the river Ebro that runs through the city.
The origin of the name L’Ampolla. which translated means bottle, comes from the former shape of the mouth of the River Ebro. In fact, all the features of the delta have played a role in creating the character of this town: the sea, the bay, the water, the land and the dunes.
A mixture of Mediterranean essences, alternating between flat alluvial land and craggy coast depict the terrain; between mud and rocks; olive trees and rice fields; marl rocky banks and lagoons. (www.spain-holiday.com)
L’Ampolla is also called the gate to the Ebro delta.
Hospitalet del Infante is located in a privileged natural spot: sea on the one side and mountains from the Mestral range on the other.
Hospitalet del Infante offers a wide range of opportunities for practicing water sports, such as diving, boat excursions, windsurfing and kite surfing, sailing and kayaking.
There are also various companies that provide excursions by bicycle, climbing, horse riding, classes of golf, tennis, and more. One of the principal attractions we find throughout the entire Costa Dorada and specifically in Hospitalet del Infante is the cuisine. Within the town of Hospitalet del Infante there are all types of restaurants that wisely combine dishes based on the Mediterranean diet with mountain produce. (www.universalholidaycentre.com)
I am walking past several long and wide sandy beaches and lots of narrow calas embedded among the cliffs on my way and l meet lots of tourists, mainly French and Dutch it seems like to me.
I note that there are several well-kept camping grounds right at the beach situated in nice environments with high trees and bushes providing shade and privacy. They also have shops, restaurants, amusement facilities and all the conveniences and distractions that people seems to want. At the end of the day I had to find a couple of new walking boots to replace the old ones because the soles were all worn out.
The beaches are the best and most appreciated attractions of Cambrils, nine kilometers of fine, golden sand, where you can enjoy the wonderful Mediterranean sun. The water quality in unrivalled, as evidenced by the blue flags awarded by the European Union, and the gentle slope into the sea, with calm and shallow waters making this perfect for children.
On the Seafront Promenade you can enjoy, on foot or bicycle, the tranquility and landscape of the Cambrils coastline. (www.universalholidaycentre.com)
When this day was over my beach-bum days also would be over for a while and it was time for me to re-connect with the official GR-7 once more and prepare for the last stages that would take me to Andorra la Vella in about ten days time I reckoned. I had a couple of days off in Tarragona staying at a guest house on top of a restaurant facing the main square. There were tv-sets outside many restaurants and bars showing live matches from the World Cup football tournament (2014).
I collected a couple of maps at the tourist office in Tarragona and soon established that it would be a good idea to follow Cami de Sant Jaume (GR-172) to Santes Creus to reconnect with GR-7. Cami de Sant Jaume (Saint James) starts at the main cemetery in Tarragona and moves mainly through farmland. I was lucky to find a place to stay in Santes Creus. Almost all restaurants and guest houses in Spain closes either completely or closes very early one day a week to give the staff some time off and the only guest house in Santes Creus did just that, closed early, on Sundays. But I got a room and something as odd as an early dinner 🙂 before the innkeeper called it a day, passed me the code to the front door and then went on his way.
This day began with an excellent breakfast in the foyer of my guest house in Santes Creus where the innkeeper had placed an espresso machine, sandwiches, yogurt, and orange juice. I went on my way at seven in the morning and would not come to rest again until eleven in the evening due to a decision to change the route radically once more. The explanation to that is that I met with the GR-7 once more but soon decided to move away from it again and take an alternative route. The GR-7 in that area mainly follows dirt tracks lined with pine trees that makes it impossible to see anything at all of the surroundings and it was also raining quite heavily and that made the track very slippery and clay stuck to the boots making it impossible to take more than a few steps until it had to be cleaned off. Given those circumstances I thought that I would be better off walking in a nearby tarmac road. But after having passed Bellprat, the third little village with nothing more to offer than chlorinated water from the public water fountain I changed direction and started to walk straight towards Igualada, the nearest city. A couple of kilometers down the road I made a hotel reservation at a hotel in the city using my iPhone. All the time from Tarifa to Andorra I was often grateful for the excellent coverage that my Yoigo “La del Uno” prepaid Internet subscription supplied even in the countryside and in the mountains. I arrived at around eleven in the evening to the hotel and to my surprise and joy the friendly clerk saw to it that I had a hot meal and a glass of wine after having taken a much longed-for shower.
A very pleasant day with this oddly shaped mountain, Montserrat, in focus. Montserrat means saw mountain in Catalan and when looking at the shape of the mountain it is obvious why. I went up into the heart of the mountain where monks during centuries have been constructing a complete city with a cathedral and all. Montserrat is a tourist magnet and there were plenty of people up there even if it was rather late in the afternoon. On my way down to the village Monistrol de Montserrat I passed by a nun’s convent and the nun on guard showed me the inside of the church that had a very modernistic touch. All the furnishing except for a sculpture showing the Madonna and the child had been crafted by the nuns themselves she said. And they certainly had made a beautiful and very professional job of it. She was quite talkative and I asked her if her order demanded that they took a vow of silence and she said it did, but five times a day they gathered in the church for praying and singing and then they took the chance to really exercise their vocal cords 🙂
