Day 60 – EU – Spain [Viladecans to Mataro]


03/02/20

45.6km

  From Viladecans (Spain) to Mataro (Spain)

Europe


Across Barcelona, Sagrada Familia touristy snaps and onto the seaside promenade, on a sunny day

Today’s run was flat, a welcome respite from yesterday’s mountain expedition! I headed out towards Barcelona, which I crossed from West to East. Barcelona is a city I have visited several times and I was therefore not looking to spend too much time going around, having seen the touristy sights already. I still wanted a snap of BoB and I by the Sagrada Familia Cathedral!

Barcelona is the biggest city I have run across since the start of the run. Such busy cities mean lots of pavements, going up and down with BoB, traffic lights, pedestrians everywhere, mostly looking down at their phone (I shout a lot of warning “look up!” as they walk towards me totally unaware). It was quite overwhelming, contrasting from the day in the mountains all by myself yesterday!

One thing that struck me, as it was early morning, was the smell of the bakeries filling in the streets. The smell of freshly baked bread, croissants… I resisted for a while. Then took BoB inside one of the “boulangery” (?!) and sat down for a proper breakfast of “croissant” and “pain au chocolat”. Fresh out of the oven. Delicious!

After these 10km across the busy city, I got some respite as I reached the seafront. I found the seaside promenade that took me nearly all the way to Mataro. Some parts of the promenade were indeed closed to pedestrians access and it seemed to be the consequence of Storm Gloria – still in the process of being cleaned up and repaired.

Another balmy day in Spain, well above 20 celsius. It would qualify as Springtime nearly everywhere else but here!



Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: