Montanejos ... hot springs and limestone crags!

With a series of springs pouring out 25degree water right near town, and with more than 1400 routes, Montanejos seemed pretty perfect!





 

We also thought that it would be a great place to have a break from free camping, as there is meant to be a climbers' refuge there ... however, the place has been renovated and the price had dramatically increased. And so the climbers have disappeared, too.

So after one night there, we moved to the free camping spot across the road and under the bridge. Hey, with hot springs in town, who needs hot showers anyway?!


On that note, though - the air temperature wasn't really conducive to spending too long in a 25degree river. Once in the water, it was hard to get out - and we were wandering around more often than not in our down jackets, and climbing in thermal tops at least.

  
We spent a couple of days cragging, before hitting up some longer routes - but we'll post more about them later! We were pretty impressed by the diversity and sheer number of the routes - grades for all abilities, and single pitch crags to adventurous multipitches, and even a little bit of trad (although we stuck to the bolted ones this time!).

Well, we are on the coast.

So it was time for a Sunday lunch of seafood.

We ate the second course (calamari!) too fast for photography, but you get the general idea.

... but just around the corner!

Siurana is not alone as a climbing destination in the Costa Daurada!

Seeking some easier routes, we also checked out La Mussara right around the corner ... it didn't have the atmosphere of Siurana's campsite, not having a campsite or anything at all as the village has been abandoned for 50 years now, but it made us realise there are plenty of climbing options out there in Spain.

 We're going to need a lot longer in this country!

Siurana ...

We arrived here on the Saturday night of a long weekend ... and quickly realised that free camping in your campervan in the carpark, up near the castle, was de rigueur. The place was packed with local and international climbers, most of whom seemed to be sleeping in their vans - just like us!

Perched on the top of the cliff, Siurana is a very pretty and very tiny town and one of the last places to be "reconquered" from the Moors - the remains of the castle are still there. It's got a climber-friendly campsite, a shop selling local wines and olive oils, a fancy restaurant and B&B, and that's about it.

It has also got a lot of pretty spectacular vertical climbing, on limestone that almost looks like Blue Mountains sandstone ...

... well, if you look at it in the right light and squint a bit.

We had great weather and soon settled into a pattern of waking up late, having a lazy breakfast, before wandering to the crag and climbing until the sun set - then dinner and beers. It was a pattern that was hard to break!

We did one quite average multi-pitch - the first pitch was great, but after that the rock quality deteriorated - so concentrated mainly on pushing our limits on single pitch, sports routes and enjoying the views to the valley below.

The only downside with Siurana? Most of the climbs here are hard. Jen felt very chuffed by onsighting a bunch of 6a's (and leading one overhanging 6a+ with "only a few" rests ...) and while Mark was a bit more in his element, he still got spat off a few routes. Although we're both improving by all this climbing we're doing, if we could climb a few grades harder, we'd probably still be there months and months later ...

Sunsets in Siurana

Some say this is the best place for climbing in Spain. For every day we were there, it certainly had some memorable sunsets.

Food and drink and more food ... and maybe just one more drink, too

Barcelona!

After living like monks in Montserrat (when in Rome, etc), it was time for some hedonism. You can read this as "a shower (preferably hot) and a meal cooked by someone else (preferably several courses)". Crazy stuff, we know.

We left Fred by a small train station about an hour outside of the city and caught the train in, as theft of all varieties is meant to be rife and we didn't want to risk all our climbing gear or Fred himself - this also meant that we had a night without Fred. (He didn't miss us at all.) We slept instead in a grubby but very cheap pensione in the centre of Barri Gothic, that satisfied our requirements for being secure, having hot water and being in a great location. 

Lunches were a Barcelona highlight. E10 lunch menus are everywhere - and they include at least two courses, a drink (wine or beer or whatever) and even a coffee. Bargain! And the highlight of the highlight? Chocolate and raspberry mud cake, served with balsamic vinegar icecream. Yes, it worked. Yum.

Not Gaudi himself ...

We also got some culture. We saw the Segrada de Familia before it was declared a proper church on 7 November, and were grateful to have paid a few Euros extra for a guided tour - which was extremely informative and, as there were only 3 people on it including us, enabled us to ask all our silly questions.

...but these guys were my favourites.

(On a side note, thankfully we missed the chaos that is El Papa in town!)







And we went to the Museum of the History of Barcelona ... which is underneath Barri Gothic, and goes under the city to the excavated remnants of Roman Barcelona (being cheifly a bit of city wall, a dye factory and a fish sauce factory ... we're guessing it was a smelly part of town).

Of course, we also went out on a tapas-bar-crawl. Starting with pulpo and beers, and ending with ... well, let's just say a lot of delicious snacks, frosty beverages and smooth reds many hours later. Highly recommended.

Bathelona

The city of Gaudi, in the country of tapas, rioja and the siesta. The climbing on nearby Montserrat isn´t too shabby either!

So life is pretty grand. We´ve been working hard on our lisps, our appetites for good food and wine and our mental headspace for limestone conglomerate rock (previously the ocean floor, and still moving about).

More posts to come ... we promise!