Harbour at Port Vendres
After an overnight stop overlooking the beach at Sète, we moved on down the coast to an aire at Port-Vendres. The aire ( N 42.517752, E 3.114114 )isn’t very pretty, being tucked away behind a large container terminal, but Port Vendres itself is a lovely fishing village. It is 8 miles north of the Spanish border. Just to the north of Port-Vendres is Collioure, another attractive fishing port. It was in Collioure that Patrick O’Brian wrote many of the Master and Commander series of novels.
Bay at Port Vendres
The weather is changing and with rain forecast we moved further south on Tuesday in to Spain.
España
Disused Border Post
We took the coast road round to the Bay of Roses. it is a bit twisty, and there were some rumblings from the co-pilot about the benefits of roads with more than two lanes, but there were great views of the mainly rocky coast.
Bay of Roses
We arrived at Camping Salatà ( N 42.266353, E 3.15601) in the town of Roses at lunchtime, in the rain. I have been trying to freshen up my very limited spanish over the last few days and managed a few words about the lluvia (rain) with the very cheerful gardener here. I had less luck with the delightful receptionist..having told her I was trying to learn spanish she told me that they didn’t speak spanish here; catalan was the local lingo.
I told her we had two dogs..she raised her eyebrows…’small dogs’…’Well I’ll only charge for one then’
Seafront in Roses
We cycled around Roses in the rain. There is a palm tree fringed beach and a couple of rather time ravaged forts. We found a good sea front cycle ride extending north from the port.
Port at Roses
The soccer stadium
Water football anyone?
The Beach
We’re not showing you Roses at its best…in the sun this would be an amazing place.
The Bay, with a fort in the middle distance
We picked up a spanish sim (2 GB, €20 from Orange) and some luscious spanish pimentos on the way back and feasted on fajitas. Tomorrow? We’ll see what the weather does.
Rambling about Europe with the Kray Twins (Colin and Penny).
Travels with Mavis 
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