Every time I think of the Delta, I think of Helen Reddy and how everyone in our car used to sing out loud to her song whenever it came on the radio.  My mom, dad, aunt, cousins, and even my school friends all knew and loved this particular melody.  We would belt out the tune in our off-keyed harmony, often making up lyrics on the fly, as we cruised down the highway on any one of many childhood road trips in Mom’s orange wood-paneled Buick Vista Cruiser.  My mother’s tenor would lead us since Dad and I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.  Such fantastic memories!  And here we were, yet again, just like Dawn, headed downtown with a suitcase in our hands, looking for a dark-haired stranger.  Only our guy was actually employed by Avis and would provide us with the rental car we needed to whisk ourselves away on our next trip! 

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For our week in the Delta and our first trip of 2021, we procured a rental bungalow at the lovely Camping Ampolla Playa (https://www.campingampolla.es) in the tiny village of L’Ampolla on the Costa Dorada.  Mom wanted to see some wild flamingos and Allita was excited to play in the sand and surf.  I was hoping to wander through a rice field for the first time in my life.  Possibly even do some fishing?  Who knows what adventure we might discover?  The possibilities were endless and we had been long awaiting this opportunity to venture forth and explore; now that the government felt the pandemic was under better control and had loosened the restrictions on travel.  Although we had planned to visit Alicante and Valencia for a month, both those areas were not open to us at that time, so we were getting as close as we possibly could while still making the most of our experience by visiting a lovely and very important area within our travel boundary (Catalonia).    

Here is what we did on our this leg of our trip:

We spent quality time on the lovely sandy beach very near our bungalow at the campground.

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We collected shells, rocks and sea glass. 

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We built Sandcastles.

We played at the playground and exercise/activity area and explored the pool (not yet open), restaurant, and grocery market.

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On Friday, we spent the entire day exploring the actual Delta of the Ebro river.  (More on this day in another post which is dedicated entirely to Parque Natural del Delta del Ebro)

Finally, on Saturday, we headed out on foot, because the sun was shining and the weather was warmer, although it was still quite windy and brisk.  We planned a nice quick walk to L’Ampolla along the boardwalk to the marina and that’s exactly what we got. 

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Although it was not really a quick walk.  All-in-all, we walked for just over 3 hours, exploring a small section of the little town near the yacht club and just below the actual port.  There were some beaches but all were gravel and rock and none as beautiful as ours just around the bay.  One did have some tide pools, which Allita found exciting and decided to explore even though I prophetically predicated she would get her still-shod feet wet. 

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It was a lovely excursion.  The small section of L’Ampolla we explored was so much like any other small coastal mediterranean town that we could easily have been in Italy or Greece, meandering the streets and back alleyways, and poking into every possible shop we could find.  Yes, we also made a variety of purchases, mostly apparel.  That was quite fun indeed.

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Most of our time in lovely L’Ampolla was spent relaxing and enjoying the beach and the campground.  We rented paddle ball equipment and played for 1 1/2 hours during which time we also simultaneously explored the nearby creek bed and flora.  As Allita observed, those little balls can really travel! We had only one period of cold overcast weather and we spent that morning inside playing games, reading, and generally relaxing, but were able to enjoy some dappled sunshine and beach walking later that afternoon.  After a full, fun-filled week down on the Delta, we washed our clothes and packed up the rental car again to head north to Tarragona for a week of Cava and glamping!

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The Ebro River Delta is home to Parque Natural del Delta del Ebro, which includes around 20,000 acres (30 square miles) of protected wetlands, beaches, marshes, salt pans and estuaries that are a winter stopping point for over 300 different species of migratory animals (particularly birds).  The Ebro itself is the longest river entirely in Spain flowing through at least 20 different cities.  In fact, it is the third largest river to drain into the Mediterranean after the Rhône and the Nile.  We have crossed the Ebro river a few times during our previously road trips (Logroño).  However, this was our first time visiting the famous Delta region in Tarragona, one of the largest Mediterranean wetlands, and what Allita refers to as the “Delta Biome” (Minecraft reference).  

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We explored the Delta on a rainy, overcast Friday, which was also quite chilly, so spending the day mostly in the car was not a great difficulty.  We saw Greater Flamingos, Mallards, Heron, various Tern, some coot (mostly the avian variety but we did see a few, older, homo sapiens as well), Gulls, and a plethora of other fauna all living among the rice fields, reedy marshes, lagoons, and cat-tailed wetlands spread all over the Ebro River Delta region.  We darefully drove our little rental vehicle from the campgrounds along roads that don’t exist on any map we owned and were just vague grey lines even at max zoom on Google’s version.  I’m quite surprised at how much detail that app. has for where we were, considering that on multiple occasions we were literally driving ON THE BEACH and within a few meters of the actual surf.  While, other times, it felt like we were probably rolling casually down someone’s driveway at best or a well-traveled animal corridor at worst.  This was the type of adventuring I have not experienced since our road trip through Utah in 2016.  Another nostalgic feature of this journey was the sand dunes all along the beach area.  I have not seen such a quality dune system at the beach since I was a child exploring the coastal Carolinas.  

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We wandered these “roads” for many hours and rarely encountered other travelers, even locals.  We passed through Deltebre, Sant Jaume d’Enveja, and finally ended up in Eucaliptus.  In fact, we picked up the very best of the marshland and bird-watching at la Tancada on our way to Poble Nou del Delta. 

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We ended our day excursion passing l’encanylssada lagoon with it’s lovely homes, Sant Carles de la Capita and stopping in Amposta to explore the Lidl and stretch our legs.  We got a glimpse of L’Aldea and Camarles on our way back to L’Ampolla to the campground but since we were traveling the N-340 at the time, it wasn’t much more than a quick look.   All-in-all, we were extraordinarily lucky that we arrived only a week before all these tiny paths wandering through the region would be closed off for 6 months as part of ecological preservation and rice cultivating activities that happen in this area every year.  Otherwise, our entire visit would have been nothing much more than a quick glimpse from the distant highway.

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I don’t have the vocabulary in my repertoire to do justice to the beauty of all we witnessed on the Delta and sadly, my photography skills are even more lacking.  To say that it is absolutely a place worth visiting is a massive understatement, but you would get no argument from the multitude of fowl that flock to this area every year.  Parque Natural del Delta del Ebro is a hidden marvel of wonders – a biological gem – a place where man and nature live and labor in harmony and balance, season after season.   It is easy to understand why the Spanish strive so hard to preserve this lovely area.