Home at our second home

I slept well, my health data is better than usual, my BMW 1200 GS is on my doorstep, I reflect on the trip and feel good. That was my trip and it was over in a flash. Here in our 2nd home, I first have to settle in again, and the certainty that I will soon have to leave again makes it hard to arrive at all.

 

After greeting the neighbours, I retreated into my writer's shell. I can isolate myself in no time, live only in my story and forget the world around me. That carries the risk of loneliness. So today I'm pulling myself together, resuming my health discipline. Since I don't have a cross trainer here, I practice walking until my Apple Watch signals that I have completed my desired workout. On the way, I buy a fresh salad, which I prepare at home with local lemon and olive oil. I have deserved a local beer to go with it.

18.10.2022 Last stretch: from Benicàssim to our home in Los Montesinos

 

This is the backyard of the Intur Hotel, with pool and everything.

Last night at the Intur Hotel, I sat in the backyard and just enjoyed a beer, and later on a coffee Americano. In Spain, when you order a beer, in most cases you get some munchies on the side.

The large beer and the large coffee were 4,10 € together. That's what I like in Spain: enjoying life is actually affordable, you don't need big bucks for it, like in France or, even worse, in Switzerland.

I had a terrible night, as non of my family members responded on my good night message. Knowing that Susanne is probably quite sick with Corona, I worried what happened, if I should try to get a flight back sooner than scheduled and so on. In my head, the full drama evolved. That had an immediate effect on my health. Over the whole trip my blood pressure was fine, actually pretty

low, which is good. Arriving in Spain, it even dropped further.  Then, with the message of Corona, of stress at home, of the Internet not working, of Susanne perhaps not making it to her statistics exam and so on, the blood pressure shot up to 142 to 94, pulse 83. 

But then, suddenly, everything was OK, no problem, just the normal stress at home. Why worry? - Fine. It took me half a day to calm down again. The two coffee at the Intur didn't help, although they were excellent! I had an amazing breakfast, one of the most extended buffets I have ever seen.

The bread was fresh and still warm, the grated tomato very tasty, together with fine olive oil.

I skipped all the sweet stuff, but it was very popular with the French guests.

The fresh melon and pineapple was so sweet, just to good to have only once.

All sorts of milk.

And cheese and ham and salami.

More sweet stuff ...

... and REALLY sweet stuff, like cake.

The restaurant had the size of an opera house.

Most of the guests where retired folks, I was one of the younger ones. Most of the people were from France, some of Spain, no Germans.

There was a meat dish in sauce, sausages, tortilla (potato and egg), scrambled egg, champignons ...

... fried eggs (my favorite, grilled tomato, crips bacon ...

I shared that with Bernd and Brigitte, our friends living in Doña Pepa, close by to Los Montesinos, and Bernd replied: "Well, get started, we are waiting for you. So, loaded with a couple of very tasty coffee that made my heart beat like a steam engine, I hit the road. The landscape is beautiful in most parts. Close to larger cities like Valencia or Alicante, the traffic was pretty dense, though, I mean, really dense. 

I had to be 100% present, due to lane-switching trucks mainly, but also car drivers coming as close as 5 meters on my tail. I hate that. Anyway, as Bernd was waiting, I drove the whole distance of about 300 km in one go, without a stop. At the end, my butt hurt a bit, but I made it as promised, 12:00 sharp I arrived at B&Bs house.

It was really warm, and I wanted to get out of my heavy biker gear. I put the key into the lock of our front door ... and it didn't open. I went over to our neighbours Mark and Isabelle, they had a spare key. Didn't work either. Shit, not what I needed right now. So close, and yet not home again. Roger, our neighbour from Luxembourg said that I might pay something like 800€ for getting the door opened.  Mark gave me the address of a locksmith. That guy came right away, and, thanks to the Universe, he managed to open the door. 80 bucks cash. That was reasonable, for an immediate service, sort of emergency. Meanwhile I was wet sweating, but I was in our house, not just at the house, and that was the most important thing.

After a little sleep I drove to the supermarket to get some basic supplies, like fresh tomatoes, some beer, some ham and cheese and bread and olives and capers, and some chips. Back home, I just put everything into the fridge and went to my bedroom. Rest. Yes. Ahhh.

My adventure trip Garding - Los Montesinos came to an end for now. 1777,7 km, 26 degrees Celsius. Next stop: Marrakesh.

Silence. 

Rest.

Happiness.

17.10.2022 Empuriabrava to Benicàssim

 Summary of today: a four hours drive, lots of traffic around Barcelona, one huge truck accident, some drizzle, nice Italian company, the best hotel of this whole trip, and a view to the Mediterranean Sea.

When I started this morning at the hotel in Empuriabrava, there was another BMW 1200 R next to me. The GS is the most common bike in Spain.

As I didn't have breakfast at the hotel, I bought some stuff to for the road here at the supermarket. I could have gone to the German Lidl as well, just 20m next to this market, but then: when in Spain, buy Spanish, support the locals. That's my motto.

So, 15 min later I found a place to rest and have breakfast. Not yet with the Spanish coffee that I like so much, but with an energy drink that I still had in my luggage, just in case.

This and the following pictures are proof that Spanish public places have a lot of nice trees, lots and lots of waste baskets and lots of places to sit down and rest. I wish we had only some of that in Germany.

Great, isn't it?

Spain is very green these days, lots of forests, mostly some kind of pine trees.

I just cannot get enough of that.

Here you see me after breakfast, happy as a pig in mud, with the highway sign to Barcelona in the back. Some heavy traffic is to be expected.

What I absolutely love in Spain are these trees along the highway

This is the road to Barcelona.

Some more and different trees.

Here you can see the truck races, sometimes three trucks next to each other. This kind of traffic needs some concentration, although with a max speed of 120 km/h I felt pretty relaxed. On the highway, opposite direction, a car transportation truck crashed, fell over to the side, another truck ran into it, also fell over, and the whole Autobahn was a big mess, as if a bomb had exploded. Damaged cars, truck bits and pieces, a huge mess.

Finally, my first Spanish coffee Americano, and a Crema Catalana.

1,5 hours before my final destination for today, I met three Italians on the road. They were driving ahead of me, and I slowed down a bit to join the pack. Their driving style was nice and safe, and we drove about one hour together, before they turned right towards a petrol station. I joined and so we met in person. Very nice old guys, all on BMW 1200 or 1250 GS (Adventure).

Finally I arrived at Benicàssim, at the Intur Hotel. Google maps shows this hotel as a high price location. I had booked a room about 2 months before via booking.com, and I payed only 55 € for a great room with breakfast.

That's the place.

I can only highly recommend this place. 

They gave me a room on the 6th floor (top level, best view), and could look down to my Black Betty, sound and safe.

Here a short impression of the Room. Sorry for mumbling German, but I think you get the picture.

My total mileage today: 1474 km.

Arriving in Empuriabrava, Spain

And then I made it: shortly after the last motorway toll booth came the border crossing from France to Spain. I had arrived in my second homeland. Right after the border, I filled up again. As I wanted to drive on, the radio signal for my iPhone failed again. Vodafone had probably not yet switched to Spain. So I took out my Samsung A22, with dual SIM, one Spanish and one German, and clamped it onto the bracket on my handlebar. Google Maps ran on it without any problems. All my precautions and double security paid off!

I've been to Empuriabrava before with the family, at the Portofino Hotel. I liked it very much already the first time. The rooms are great (no dirty carpets, in Spain the floors are almost always tiled), there is a very good restaurant overlooking the marina, and there is also an Irish pub, with good mood music. The guy at the reception is very friendly, speaks German, French and English as well as Spanish, and he offers me a place in his secure garage for free. "For your

beautiful bike, from me, free for you." Yes, this is what life has to offer! I realise that this is the first time in my life that I have entered Spain by motorbike. I have already visited most other countries, at least briefly. To celebrate, I order a delicious meal and a large beer.

I'm happy, and now I'm going to take a break for a while.

16.10.2022 Finally: off to Spain!

On my journey from Orange to Empuriabrava, I got to know the petrol crisis on the French side. I wanted to fill up again at a BP service station. In France, by the way, there is no service at the petrol stations any more. You have to fiddle with your credit card right at the pump, read/interpret various displays and submenus in French and then you get the free payment to fill up. Once you get used to it, it works quite well. At this BP, however, the first thing they said was that no matter how much you filled up, you would first get a credit card charge of 120 euros, which would then be paid back sometime in the next few days. 

Then you put your card in the slot and are told that there is no petrol. There was no petrol at any of the pumps! I was very careful, though, and always fill up when the tank of my GS is still half full. That saved me here. So I drove on to the next service station in 42 km, a Total, and it still had fuel. There was quite a traffic jam, but at least I could fill up. By the way, Total and all petrol stations on the

motorway are of selected quality. The toilets are spotlessly clean, the service is top notch, the selection of food and souvenirs is large. The motorway tolls are also hefty, but I'd rather pay for an excellent road and the best service stations than to have to drive through a construction site every 5 minutes, as I do

in Germany, where hardly any work is being done. The motorways in France are great. No traffic jams, no road works, best road surface, 130 km/h maximum, totally relaxed driving. 

There I met another nice biker, this time he was from Holland. The guy had already been on the road for 24 hours, without a break, day and night, and he still wanted to get to Spain. He had also fallen victim to the rain the day before, but more heavily than the Argentinian and myself. The Dutchman had come into a downpour that had flooded the motorway, with water up to the footrests of his bike. "Then I got off the motorway, that was a bit too much for me. But otherwise I actually ride everything and always." - "Did you have problems getting fuel on your tour?" - "Yes, I would never have got this far if I hadn't had 10 litres of reserve petrol in both panniers and in the top case!" 

Wow. 30 litres of petrol in the luggage, that's a lot. I was apparently very lucky.