Departed the City Hotel Barcelona around 11.30am after a very good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast - cos I arrived so late, I'd had no supper, so I was starving! Already quite hot - all vents open...
It was so great to be back on the superb Spanish roads... these photos are of the N420 heading towards my 2nd overnight stop, planned to be at a campsite somewhere south of Lleida and north of Alcaniz - the third photo in this group was taken at 21.25 local time and it was really still that bright. So needless to say I kept on riding, spotting a campsite at Lake Caspe (on the paper map), but when I got to the turn-off didn't like the look of the unmade road/track leading down to the lake so shot back to Mequinenza where one of my correspondents helped me find a couple of potential sites through the magic of text messaging . . . and I eventually got to Fayon, a purpose-built holiday village a few km to the east and up a very twisty narrow road, now getting quite dark.
As I was running very low on fuel, I stopped at an unmanned petrol station at the village entrance but a slight drama ensued... I couldn't get the tank 'boot' to open (to get access to the petrol cap) but knew that I could manually unlock it by removing the seat and fiddling with the electric locking mechanism. I didn't fancy unloading everything at this time of night so scooted into the village to find the campsite and resolved to fix the boot lock in the morning (and re-fuel).
Unfortunately the little campsite was full!
But I had spotted the Hostal Roca and the rather pretty young barmaid there managed to understand my pidgin-spanish request for a room (and a beer!). The girl showed me my room and I quickly dumped my gear and I shot back down to join the three men watching the football, gratefully supping an ice-cold bottle of Estrella. Meanwhile yer wan took my passport and asked me in broken English, marginally more comprehensible than my crucified Spanish if I wanted to eat... It was late - around 11pm - and I grinned & nodded like an eegit. She said what did I want to eat and like the well-raised bloke that I am, I politely replied "anything".
Within minutes (or the time taken to sip a bottle of beer) I was presented with tostadas with a tuna melt type filling with salad (and another beer of course!).
About twenty minutes later I had polished the lot off and was feeling well and truly replete and debating (with myself, as one does) whether I should reward myself for finding such a good spot by having one beer for the road when my lovely little barmaid placed a plate of steak & chips in front of me!! Well another beer and I had swept the plate clean but passed on the solitary cob (bread roll) which she presented when she came to take the empty plate. I signified that I was completely stuffed, hoping I wasn't going to have to face some Spanish version of bread & butter pudding...
Thankfully no more food appeared, but another lady who seemed to be the boss, possibly the barmaid's mother. She gave me back my passport and asked me if I wanted to park the bike in her garage - which was great.
Hostal Roca proved to be a right treasure of a place and is highly recommended - very basic and functional but a great welcome and they can certainly feed ya! Mum gave me a potted history of the place telling me the original village had been swamped by the lake when the authorities had built a dam and only the church spire was now visible. She showed me some photos of the old village and it was kind of sad and a bit poignant to see what was once a vibrant and real working community, now just a place full of holiday homes, populated mostly by wealthy Spanish, Brits and Dutch, etc.
Tuesday 18 June
Being somewhat full from last night I only had a lovely black coffee and some biscuits for brekkie and was on the road for about 11am.
Fantastic ride to Albacete - I will definitely be back to do this route again - can't put it into words - maybe I should video it...
I think it was about 450km - a long glorious day's ride. Was completely knackered when I got to the city and quickly found a hotel - Europa - and settled into the bar for a couple of beers and straight to bed and a very deep sleep (dreaming of the N420!).
A perfect surface, with bend after bend, you just can't help but get in the groove and ride like never before - so difficult to stop and take a photo!!
They got some straight stuff too - just to test your top speed...
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