Day 90. Thursday 5 June.

A slow morning as we’d been offered a late check out and our check in at Vilanova y la Geltrú was not until 1500. Packing (ahead of repacking for return flights), tidying/cleaning, rubbish disposal – mundane tasks.

Our host Isa came over to do the check out, and Google translate worked overtime to help us communicate reasonably successfully. A great spot, good hosts…..just a rooster and church bells to keep us alert. And T learnt that those plastic bag flags in the rice paddies are to keep the flamingos at bay, as they like to grab the rice seeds/young plants! And so delightful that Google translate brought up the word ‘flamenco’ for the bird. 

On the road,  probably the last high speed (120 km/hr) one we’ll tackle (T says hooray!) A few issues with unclear instructions from Doris – and one just plain wrong. First confusion saw us heading 10 km in the wrong direction before we could ‘Do a U turn at the roundabout’. D’s somewhat coarse reaction caused the voice recognition into a conniption! 

But we arrived at the specified location, with a set of instructions on how to access the apartment. D, being the expert manager, had screenshot the instructions sent via Whatsapp (which included several photos), loaded them into ‘pages’ on the Ipad so that if there were no internet coverage (for any reason) we could refer to the pages document! 

We could have been very Spanish, as instructed, and simply pulled up on the footpath with hazard lights on and gone to the location of the key box but no, D found a legitimate on-street parking spot and we walked back to locate the key box (perfect).Then it was find the apartment block and lift, enter the apartment, get the garage remote, return to parked car, get Doris to take us around the block (she had no idea and got on the job just before the end: D knew where he was going), enter the underground garage, look for orange doors….Yes, close ‘Pages’, we’re there. The luggage circus then emptied the little Peugeot. We were in! 

T is delighted that the seat clutching, fearful gasping, groans of horror and gut-wrenching panic of the high speed trips is over. So is D. But there’s one more car trip tomorrow to the Peugeot drop-off.

A balmy afternoon passed, families gathered in the playground plaza beneath and children’s laughter swirled around and up. It is a real ‘village’ environment. A walk to find the train station for our trip on Monday was positive…looks pretty straightforward (VilaNova to airport). We’ll do the test run tomorrow in reverse direction after dropping off the car.

Dinner was sourced from local supermarket and we’re back to hamburger patties on mash with some fresh greens (still some carrots to get through!), preceded by that tapas!