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.