On Monday, 29 June 2020, after I taxied down to the train station, retrieved the rental van and disinfected the entire interior of said van with Sanitol (a.k.a. Lysol) wipes, we loaded up all our bags and camping equipment with the help of our friendly concierge, Antonio, and began our journey up the Costa Brava.  I had printed some navigational instructions for Allita so she could assist me in the journey without getting “bored” (since iPads are verboten while traveling via car, bus or train).  She was working in harmony with Mom who was manning the map notebook – the kind of map that is ring-bound and has numbers on all four sides of the page so you know where to turn to next depending on which direction you’re going.  The plan was fairly simple: Go north. Follow the coast highway. See the Costa Brava.  Find a place to camp for the night.  Done!

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We spent many hours driving up the coast.  The views were amazing.  We traveled through small beach towns with fantastic homes and businesses lined up right along the side of the highway which also traveled in parallel with the train tracks (Vilassar de Mar).  The road is on the west side of the train track and the beach is on the east side.  So in order to reach the beach, you have to find a parking spot (this is a big challenge) and then a passenger tunnel or bridge (boardwalk) in order to cross over the rails.  More often than not, the paths were tunnels marked with a little blue sign of a person descending a staircase.  That was an interesting discovery since it was not identified once during the hours of study of Spanish road signs I had previously undertaken.

I had actually done a tremendous amount of research prior to our trip.  I’m sure this comes as no real surprise to anyone reading this who also knows me well.  I like to gather as many details and facts as I can before I make a decision about any action I’m about to take.  I have not always been this fastidious.  However, prior life experiences have shown me that “Oh man! I can do better than that! Here, hold my beer!” is definitely not the best approach and something a bit more organized and deliberate generally has a better outcome.  All that said, I already had some ideas about where we might spend our first few nights.  Also, at this point, I would like to mention that navigating in Europe is much easier if you know the name of the town where you are headed.  Or, better yet, the names of various towns along your route.  This way, you can simply point your car toward the path marked by the sign with a town name you recognize and not worry about pesky details such as road numbers or global direction.  In the end, the signs will lead you to the place where you want to be.    

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We finally stopped for lunch in Sant Pol de Mar.  We took the first exit into town.  The sign indicated the beach was nearby.  We drove through the little town a ways and Mom pointed out a parking lot sign.  I could not see how to drive the van into that particular lot until after we zipped past the entrance.  Dang!  I assured everyone that I would find another parking lot somewhere up ahead and we would make it to the beach easy as pie.  Yeah.  Famous last words.  I ended up navigating this huge mini-van down the narrow winding streets of this tiny little burg, swearing at the stupid “navigational assistance” system every time it beeped at me to warn that I was “too close” to something and was likely in danger of hitting it (by-the-way, this includes plants and humans as well as structures like cars or buildings).  The stupid thing was beeping like a video game.  Meanwhile, I felt like I was trying to drag a massive carry-on bag down the isle of the coach section of a 747 without hitting any of the seats on either side.  It was nearly impossible.  If ever I needed a glass of Tinto, it was certainly the moment when we popped out of downtown Sant Pol and eased into an actual parking spot.  I felt everyone in the car exhale.  Like we had been holding in our collective breath to “suck in” the sides of the car and squeeze through town.  Ha!  Unfortunately, by the time we finally found an actual parking spot, we had climbed the hill to the top of the town and the beach was a VERY long trek down a VERY steep hill, which wasn’t nearly as worrisome as the return trip.  After some mental calculations, we decided to pass on that particular location. However, you will be delighted to know, that within less than a mile, I found another suitable parking spot with an easy and only slightly downhill walk to the sandy coastline.  Yeah, that’s Costa Brava.  One minute you are at sea level and the next minute you are looking through the clouds to see Mother Earth.  No kidding.

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After a leisurely lunch and some time in the sand, we packed up again and headed north to Tossa de Mar (the blue paradise).  At this point, the road had metamorphosised from a sunny, leisurely coastal highway to a winding mountainous trail with hairpin turns, narrow lanes and hair-raising cliffs.  It was fantastic!   I, of course, was not driving fast enough for my mother who learned to drive a Ford Mustang on roads identical to these in western North Carolina.  However, I was driving waaaaaay to quickly for Allita who was hanging her head out the window trying not to lose her lunch every time we made a corner.  Poor kid.  She’s from Arlington, Texas remember?  She prefers flat, fast highways.  I enjoyed the drive, regardless of the grousing from the audience, and made a point of stopping at every scenic overlook (marked by a sign with an image of an old-fashioned camera).  Driver’s privilege!  So I have lots of great pics taken from the scenic green route on Mom’s map notebook.  Thank God I used my phone so the GPS knows where we actually were.

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We arrived in Platja d’Aro and thanks to Allita’s keen navigating, we found the campground and were able to secure a spot for two nights.  Camping Reimbau is a lovely resort campground in Platja d’Aro.  It’s near enough to the beach that we can easily walk and yet far enough away that we aren’t only focused on “beach”.  There are lots of ancillary activities including several pools, playground, table tennis, mini golf, exercise classes including an entire room dedicated to spinning (on bicycles, unfortunately), tennis courts, basketball courts, a bar and a restaurant.  There is also a shopping market, a store full of interesting African-influenced native creations, a laundry mat, and the requisite bath houses/showers hidden among the many camping sites.  The campground is hidden in a field very near a wild animal adventure park (?!) and what appears to be the ruins of an old castle.  That’s actually more common than you would believe here in Europe.  Pretty much every town has some old ruins somewhere.  

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Camping in Spain is a thing.  By that, I mean, it is a very popular activity!  Many families camp and they have serious camping equipment that they set up and leave in their campsite for, what appears to be, long time periods.  Perhaps even the entire summer?!  Campsites are rented by the night, week, month and season.  Furthermore, there are campgrounds all over the place – on the coast, in the mountains, near cities. Wow!  When we arrived at Camping Reimbau in our overstuffed rental van and started to make camp using a bottom-less tent (a.k.a. canopy) with a plastic shower curtain for a floor, I’m sure the regulars were thinking “There goes the neighborhood!”.  Ha!  Still, we had not one single problem sleeping on inflatable mattresses in our little tent.  The store supplied us with ice and we were able to keep our coolers plenty cold.  We enjoyed a couple meals at the restaurant but for the most part, we made do with what we packed.  Eating our meals at the campsite and roughing it in the “resort” atmosphere, we made the Girl Scouts proud. 

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We spent two days at the lovely Camping Reimbau.  We walked 2 km to the beach and discovered it nearly abandoned.  A large group of yoga moms and kiddos were just leaving as we arrived.  Except for a few small families spread many meters apart all down the beach, we were alone.  No worry about social distancing here!  (Later, Mom discovered that the beach didn’t officially open until the following day, thus explaining the lack of goers. Oh well!) The beach had more pebbles than actual sand and Allita discovered that it was impossible to build any kind of sustainable structure – other than a massive hole, into which she almost fell later, as we were leaving.  (Grace is not her middle name!)  All told, we stayed at the beach for about an hour.  Mom and I watched two men and a backhoe position signs all down the beach indicating where the First Aid and WC were and reminding people no cameras or dogs are allowed.  Cameras are not generally allowed on Spanish beaches because many of them are topless and some are nude.  I suppose they don’t really want to be seen on social media or in someone’s “travel blog”.  Another observation to make: most Europeans are comfortable with nudity.  In fact, one lady at the campground swimming pool was topless all day long.  That was a bit surprising to me but nobody else seemed to notice.  Even at the family beaches, it’s quite common to see people strip all the way down while they shower off the sand at the completely exposed beach shower.  They eventually redress in something simple and usually dry, but if you’re not prepared for it, you can absolutely get an eye full.  Incidentally, Allita finds this horrifying.  

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We enjoyed nearly every single amenity that Camping Reimbau had to offer before we rolled out around noon on Wednesday, 1 July, wandered our way through the downtown streets of Platja d’Aro and did a little shopping before we hit the road again.  This time, we were headed to Cadaqués and Cap de Creus – the eastern-most point of the Iberian peninsula and nearby the summer home of Salvador Dalí (Port Lligat).   Onward – ho!