Day 4: DON'T SELFIE & CYCLE! & 'Veggie' Dishes May Contain Meat

We weren't going to Port Aventura today so the day was ours to do with as we will. After breakfast I lathered up in factor 50 and headed to the hotel pool for a swim. I've been in outdoor pools before but they were in Ireland so the cold weather always meant there was a lack of life in them. Here, the pool was full of people and inflatable things. Inflatable things everywhere. There's no room for laps or exercise here, just games with inflatable things! 

My fuzzy head at the pool with the Spanish sun behind me!

      After lunch we headed out to a local shop which rent scooters, prams, bicycles and electronic wheelchairs - anything with wheels really! There we rented out 6 bikes at only €10 each for the whole day which is really good value. They gave us 3 bike locks and my nephew a helmet at no extra charge. All they needed as a deposit was one passport or a cash sum. My dad left them his passport and off we cycled into the distance! Well... after walking the bikes through the crowd to the cycle lanes by the fountains...

When we locked the bikes up in Cambrils

  The cycle lanes here are totally different to the ones in Dublin. In Salou, there are two cycle lanes, one for each direction, but instead of having them either side of the road where there's ongoing traffic between, they are side by side, separated from the road. They feel extremely safe to cycle and even have yield signs in certain places where pedestrians often cross. On top of that, the cycle lanes from Salou to Cambrils are left of the road so we had the sea on our left the whole way down. At some points the shore was barely 10 meters from us. It was absolutely beautiful. 

  We eventually arrived in Cambrils, locked the bikes up, and went for a stroll. We walked by a harbour where hundreds of boats and yachts of all sorts were docked. We just so happened to pass an open gate down a private boardwalk so naturally we went where our curiosity called us and had a peek at what life with enough money for a boat is like. Oh my GOD the SIZE of some of them! They weren't just boats, I'm pretty sure there were ships too. Looking at these yachts with their fancy interior and shiny surfaces, I just couldn't understand the concept that some people have enough money to own these things. A life of money and yachts is totally alien to me. But I am absolutely fine with that as I think I'd find a lot more joy out of winning €8 on a scratch card than people with yachts will.

Beautiful. HUGE, works of art!

  When you look at the buildings facing the sea, you can see Cambrils is a totally different location to Salou. Salou is a holiday destination particularly popular to tourists from the UK and Ireland. The buildings closest to the sea are tall apartment blocks and hotels. Between them and the beach you have souvenir shops, fountains and bars. This is because Salou is a much newer city and is fueled by tourism so they need to accommodate that. Cambrils is a much older town. The buildings lined up facing the quay are of beautiful older architecture that display a lot more character. Instead of fountains everywhere we saw statues and works of art. Along the quay you still have restaurants and shops of course, but the further you walk into town, the less 'touristy' it is and the less English speaking locals there are. A place like this is excellent for experiencing true Spanish culture and putting your level of Spanish to the test. The latter we definitely experienced.

  After scouring the area trying to translate menus and coming across one particularly unhelpful and cold waitress, we eventually found somewhere nice to eat. This place also happened to have a menu that translated into almost every European language. However this did not help when it came to vegetarian options. Their canneloni had chicken in it so the only vegetarian options I could see were chips, a green salad or potatoe salad. That's pretty ridiculous!! So I ordered potatoe salad and said 'Sin carne' to her (meaning no meat) several times. She then came back out uttering lots of Spanish and saying something about frankfurters. Dad took over the conversation here as he could pick up on what she was saying a lot easier than I could. She was talking about these frankfurters and Dad was trying to ask if the sausages were vegetarian or not to which she said 'Sí!' and we were like 'Graaaand, I'll have that, problem sorted!' This was originally about a 2 minute long conversation. I eventually got the potatoe salad and had Dad taste the sausage in the salad and turns out, it was meat! Surprise, surprise. I ended up eating a green salad. And anyone who knows me knows that I am not a vegetarian who eats salads. I like pasta, and lasagna, and pizza, and omelettes, and supplements. Salads, are for sides, not mains! But I ate my rabbit food regardless. Thankfully I bought a lollipop in a shop earlier so I had that to keep me happy afterwards. I really need to improve my Spanish.

No... No...                             No...

  We eventually made it back to the bikes and decided to cycle a little further on before turning back, but the track turned away from the sea and into the town. After passing just residential areas for a while and at the risk of getting lost, we turned back and cycled towards Salou. On the way I thought I ought to get some pictures of the cycle for the blog so I took my phone out while cycling to take a video and few snaps. Now, before I continue to inform you of what happened, I'd like to ask you to imagine you're riding a bicycle. Now, what side is the front brake on, and what side is back brake on? 

  Well in my experience the front brake is on the right and the back brake is on the right, right? In Salou, they like to wire their bikes a little differently apparently as the brakes are the other way around! So I was trying to get used to this for the whole cycle. Then while holding my phone, I needed to brake suddenly, pressed the left brake thinking it was the back one but no. I ended up halting the bike, somersaulting over the handlebars with said bike landing on top of me. Very graceful! Thankfully, myself, dad and sister were just bicycle dancing to some music that was playing out of someone's car as we cycled by so we weren't going that fast! All I suffered was a severely bruised ego and legs and quite comic looking tire tracks on my shins! Anyway, lesson learned. Don't selfie and cycle!

A Selfie & Cycle Consequence. Ow!

  Having eventually arrived back in Salou without further incident, myself, dad and my brothers went for a cycle further up the tracks than we had started.* This led us to a beautiful boardwalk above a rocky shore and around old walls of the city. Really beautiful! After admiring these for some time we ran into a dead end on the cycle track and everything else was uphill. Like, 70 degree uphill. Maybe at the start of the day I could have done that but not with banged up legs! We decided to call it a day in regards to cycling and brought the bikes back to the shop. I headed back to the hotel, had a much needed shower and eventually got the tire tracks off me. 

*This cycle led us past some restaurants where those 'seagulls' I was telling you about in my Day 1 blog entry were trying to get people in. As we cycled by they STILL tried to get us to go into their restaurant, madness! One chap tried to lure us in by hilariously letting me know they have free parking for bikes there. Ha ....Ha...*cycles away.* 

   After dinner I headed out to a local Irish bar called Patrick's, no surprise in the name there. After a drink and a wander around a midnight market, I called it a day. 

  Tomorrow, we have our last day in Port Aventura. My factor 50 is at the ready. 

Hasta luego, 

Ceara

The B-e-a-Utiful Boardwalk we came across.