Craig's blog

This morning we woke up in our beautiful Spanish farmhouse villa (our room in particular is amazing – Patty and I are sharing ~1000 sq ft, 400 of which is the bathroom!) and went down and had breakfast outside in the beautiful Mediterranean air.

By the time we got on our bikes (~9:00) it was probably 80 degrees.  We had an easy ride to the sea, although I stayed back with Jessie, Diane and Jim and another family, so it was a very leisurely pace.  It was 43 km to the lunch stop which was right on the Mediterranean.  It was a beautiful spot, where we sat outside looking at the ocean while eating lunch, and then relaxed on the beach for about an hour (and cooled off in the water).

Around 3:00 most folks shuttled to our new hotel, but 4 of us did the 30 km ride to the hotel.  It was pretty warm (~90 degrees) and there was a headwind, but it was beautiful and we weren’t pushing too hard.

We arrived at a gorgeous hotel called Mas de Torrent.  Big, beautiful rooms, spacious grounds, big swimming pool and we hear they have a spectacular breakfast buffet.  I sat by the pool until about 6:45 and then quickly got ready for dinner.

We vanned up to small, old village of Pals that was built in the 16^th century.  There we walked around and found places to eat on our own (not selected by Backroads).  The kids split off in their own group and we ate with Diane & Jim.  We ended up at the same restaurant as the big group of kids (but sat far away where we couldn’t see each other).  Jim and I had paella which was good, but not at all like the paellas I’ve had and made before.