After our last few days battling traffic on the N-340 highway, I was getting hell-bent on finding a route to Sitges with the absolute minimum amount of highway, even if that meant going off-road for parts of it.
So I took to Strava heatmap and planned a route as coastal as I possibly could, and it was a lot of fun! Lots of boardwalks, some through over-developed empty retirement/vacation areas, some through cuter coastal towns, plus some beautiful hiking trails through natural park land, a few hundred metres pushing our bikes through beach sand, some rocky outcroppings bordering the rail line (where we met a guy, 10km south of Sitges, who looked like he was on his way home after a too-long night of partying, dressed in his best club outfit that was just a bit ragged), and crawling through drainage ditches under the rail line to get to the road on the other side when our road ended, plus a few km of highways.
We ran into a couple who were coming to a finish of their two-year cycling tour through Europe and were on their way back to Switzerland. We exchanged some tips on gear and camping (curious about their lightweight folding chairs! We are getting tired of sitting on the ground when we camp), and swapped blogs – hey Martin & Barbara, safe travels!
For lunch we checked out a few restaurants along the water and were disappointed to find prices 5x what we are used to in the countryside, but when we cycled away from the water two blocks, Steve found a place for a tortilla bocadillo with a drink for a reasonable price.
We did have an ice cream on the coast though, and saw this helicopter come by, lower a man to the water, hover for a bit, and then haul him back and take off. Not quite sure if it was a training exercise or something else…
When one of our coastal paths ended in impassable brush next to someone’s mansion, we reluctantly got on the highway and found our way to Sitges, where we are chilling for three nights. We’ll take the train to Barcelona tomorrow, then enjoy a beach day Thursday, before continuing towards France!
Sitges is nice, but this part of Spain is super touristy. It’s comfortable to be able to speak English everywhere and have something besides Spanish food, but I’m missing my quieter countryside. However, we are going to go out and enjoy the nightlife at least one night before we get back on the bikes! It’s pretty quiet tonight (Tuesday), so perhaps Wednesday or Thursday…