Spain Road Trip Travel Diary Part One

4.1. 20:24
Where do I start? It’s hard. It’s already Day 4 of my road trip, and this is my first diary entry. You’re wondering why? I don’t know. Lately, I feel down. I’m not sure what it is. I’ve been feeling for a while now that I’m blocked somehow. But I feel like I’m getting closer and closer to the answer. I’ve had a lot of suspicions on why I feel this lack of motivation, but none of them turned out to be true. So now I’m just ticking off one after another. My current suspicion is that I’m probably a little addicted to my phone. So I’m going to see if I can change that. And then maybe have more quality of life, and feel better again. It’s just that I’m really lacking a lot of motivation, and everything feels like a task and not like it’s fun anymore. Previously, I always loved my travel diaries. I couldn’t wait to write down all my experiences. I don’t know why it is  that everything, literally everything that I’m doing is feeling like a task. So now I decided to try to use voicenotes which means that I’m recording what I want to say, let my phone transcribe it, and afterwards I correct it. I’m hoping that this will make it faster and maybe easier to write these diaries. So back to the beginning.

If you read my last travel diary from Morocco, you know I came back from there on the 30th of December. Then, I spent New Year’s Eve in Valencia before picking up my rental car on the 1st of January. Now, the pick up is an interesting story. I woke up and got ready to pick up the rental car. But then suddenly I remembered that my credit card expired the day before, on the 31st of December. And I couldn’t get a new one for two more weeks. But I thought two more weeks it’s fine, I don’t really need the credit card. But now I remembered that pretty much all the rental companies want a credit card. So I looked up my booking and luckily, the company that I booked with also accepts debit cards. Which brings me to my next problem. I didn’t have enough balance on my debit card for the rental card to take the amount needed. So I wanted to do a transfer from my savings account to my debit account, so it would have enough funds. Now guess what happened the day before? I got a notification from my bank, that there has been a suspicious online transaction, and they were asking me to confirm that it was really me who did that transaction. And for security reasons, they blocked online transfer until I would confirm it was me. I obviously confirmed right away, and I got notified that they received the confirmation, but it would take two days for them to unblock the online transfers. So now, here I was wanting to do the transfer to my debit card, but I couldn’t because it was blocked. Short backstory: They unblocked it they day after, so actually it was only this exact one day that I didn’t have a credit card or was able to transfer funds to my debit account. This exact one day. If I had the car reserved a day before or a day after, I wouldn’t have had any problems. But any journey that starts with a difficult story, will be a good story, right?

So what do I do? Luckily, I have a big family. So I started calling them one after another. Starting with my big sister who will always be the number one call in this situation. But remember, it was the 1st of January, the morning after New Year’s Eve. So pretty much everyone I guess was still sleeping. She didn’t pick up the phone, so I tried my mother. Then I tried my others sister. Then, I tried my father. He picked up, but he was in Slovenia. So when I asked him if he could transfer me the money, he told me that he didn’t have his codes with him, and therefore he couldn’t do it. Then, I asked if his wife could do it, who was with him. She actually wanted to do it, but I needed an immediate transfer, and because she was in a different country, her bank didn’t allow an immediate transfer, only a normal transfer which wouldn’t help me because I needed the money right away. So she also couldn’t do it. My dad suggested to call one of my brothers which I did, but guess what? He didn’t pick up. He has a baby, so I was sure he and his girlfriend would not be sleeping in the morning, and I tried to call his girlfriend. She also didn’t pick up although she always picks up. I even tried my stepad, and he didn’t pick up either. I waited 30 minutes because I was sure someone would call me back eventually. I waited and waited and I was on my way already to the rental company. Nobody returned my calls, so I called all of them again. Three of my four siblings, my parents, my brother’s partner, my stepad. No one answered. I tried to stay calm. I tried to be like my younger sister. She always stays calm in these situations because eventually everything’s gonna work out fine, and I was sure it would. Finally, about an hour later, my mom was the first one to call me back. She was able to do the transfer right away. Just about two minutes after I hang up the phone with my mom, my brother started calling me back, and everyone else. I’m not gonna lie: The whole situation was a little bit stressful, but I stayed as calm as I could. And at the end of the day, everything worked out. I was able to pick the car up, and start my road trip.

My first stop was Tarragona. It was interesting. It wasn’t anything special, but it was nice enough to have a stop and it was on my way to the first stop where I would spend the night which was Girona. Altogether, it was about a five hour drive that day. Once I was in my hotel room, I made a little bit of a plan about what I was going to see on my trip. Because I was going to have 10 days altogether and a lot of cities to explore, but there’s only so much time. So I looked up online, what’s the most important things to see at each place. And I also researched where I could park the car if I would go to cities, because that isn’t easy, right? I managed to figure everything out and make a good plan.

The next day, the 2nd of January, I woke up early and then I started to explore Girona. I went to a free parking lot that I googled online the day before. Then I went to the city centre and explored. It was amazing. I’m not gonna lie: I didn’t really think a lot when I planned this road trip. Just a few cool cities I could explore. So I didn’t really have a lot of expectations. But seriously, Girona? What a beautiful city! I was really impressed. It’s a very medieval city. It was very interesting and fun fact: There was a part of Game of Thrones recorded there. The church there, that has the long stairs, is the one where Jamie Lannister rode up with his horse. All the scenes with the High Sparrow outside of the church was actually filmed here. I did not know that.

Altogether, it was very beautiful to see. There was even a river, and when I crossed the bridge and looked on the other side, it kind of looked like Amsterdam there. I had no idea that there are pueblos this interesting in Spain. Girona is definitely a place you should see if you get the chance.

The next day, my initial plan was to see a very small  pueblo called Rupit, and then go up to Andorra. But because the rental car wanted to charge me 200 euros if I wanted to cross the border, and also it only had summer tires, I wasn’t sure if I should actually do it. So I adjusted my plan a little bit and instead of going to Rupit, I went to Vic, which was on the way to Andorra, and my accommodation was about 10 minutes before the actual boarder. Vic was also really nice. If it’s on the way, I definitely recommend to see it. It’s smaller than Girona, but also similar. It has a beautiful Old Town, and beautiful old buildings. I’m glad, I had the time to do a stop over there.

Then, I arrived at the hotel in Seu D’Urgell. This was an accommodation where I had to pay for the parking. And when I came, I started to be a little bit exhausted, because there was a huge group of 10 or more people trying to check-in before me. But finally, it was my turn and the receptionist was very friendly. She stayed very calm even though there were a lot of people wanting to check-in. Finally, she gave me my room, but I went there, it was ice cold. Mind you, it’s winter and the windows were open. It was freezing cold so I went in and tried to close the window but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. There was a cleaning lady passing by and I asked her for help. She told me that it’s not closing properly, and I was like, are you kidding me? Like it’s winter? So I went back down to the reception and asked for a different room. Because I mean, it’s winter, I cannot stay in a room that’s ice cold, and where the window isn’t closing properly. The receptionist was very friendly. I had no problems at all to get a new room. I went up there and it was warm enough. The hotel itself was very basic, and unfortunately, the walls were very thin. You could hear literally everything. But with earplugs, I was able to still have a good sleep. By the way, before I started my road trip on the 31st I went to buy groceries for the whole 10 days, so I always brought the groceries with me and ate in my hotel rooms.

So I was a little unsure, should I go to Andorra or not? Because if it’s snowing obviously I wouldn’t want to go there. And also because of the tires. I had a phone call with my younger sister that day and she was like, you know, you’re so close already, you might as well, and I was like, you know what? She has a point. The next day I woke up early. This was on the 3rd of January. I decided I’m just going to go as close as I can to the border and see how the situation would be. So I went there and it was even less than 10 minutes to drive. There was a parking lot right before the border where I left my car.  Then I started to walk and cross the border on foot to go to a shopping centre about 30 minutes from the border. This was really funny because as soon as I parked the car and started walking, a policeman came from a building in front of the border. He asked me, what I was doing. I told him that I wanted to walk across the border because the rental car wanted to charge me a lot of money to cross the border, so I rather walk there. He was like, oh and he started laughing. Apparently no one walks the border between Spain and Andorra. Everyone crosses by car. He just told me that it was okay, and that I should just keep on the very left to be safe, because cars were coming pretty fast. I continued to walk to the border on the Spanish side, and there’s this guy in this house, and I didn’t really know what to do, because I could have just walked on the left, and I think they wouldn’t even have seen me. But I wanted to make sure everything was okay. So I went up to the house and he saw me coming. Once I was close, he opened the window. I told him that I was going to cross, and he said that it was fine. I asked, if he wanted to see my passport, but he told me no. I asked if I should show it on the other side and he said only if they ask me. I continued walking. On the other side of the border (Andorra), they didn’t even see me, so I could have just walked on. But I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so I went closer to them, but still, they didn’t see me. I actually had to knock on the door where the guys sit in for them to notice me. The guy opened and I told him that I was passing and asked if he wanted to see my passport. He told me “okay”. He looked at it for a bit, and returned it. I asked if I didn’t get a stamp, because the day before, I found out that Andorra was not part of the European Union, and usually when I leave the European Union and go to other countries, they would give me a stamp. He told me that if I wanted a stamp, I had to go to his colleague in the other house. He came with me, knocked on the door and told the colleague to give me a stamp. I was happy because I have a lot of stamps in my passport and I love to have them. So finally, I walked on for about 25 minutes to the nearby shopping centre. It’s not that I wanted to buy anything, but it was just the closest thing to the border walkable. For me it was just to have been in this country, to be honest with you. I’m not going to lie, this is the only country so far I went to just to have been there because I’ve been in so many countries and before I leave Europe, I wanna have been in all the countries in Europe. After my 2023 road trip, I was only missing on Andorra, San Marino and Vatican, so here was my chance to tick one of those. Andorra is so small, I don’t think it’s really any different to Spain or France, at least to the close areas. By the way if you’re wondering: The official language im Andorra is Catalan. I spent a little time at the shopping centre and then I went back and continued my journey to Zaragoza. This was the first place where everything was in Castellano (Spanish). So far, I’ve only been to places where Catalan was the official language. What surprised me, was that not only did I hear mainly Catalan in the streets, but also all the street signs only were in Catalan. In Valencia, there’s also Valenciano, but it’s more spoken in the pueblos. I hardly heard it on the streets. And all the signs are in both languages (Valenciano and Castellano). I thought that it would be the same in the other regions of Spain.

Zaragoza was also very nice to see. There is a huge  church, probably one of the biggest I’ve seen. In general, Zaragoza was very beautiful again. All the cities I’ve been so far really surprised me. I had no expectations, and they were all very cool. So I explored Zaragoza a little bit. I left my car on the outside, took the tram to go to the city centre and then came back because I never wanted to pay for parking if it was avoidable. Taking the tram is a lot cheaper. Afterwards, I went to my accommodation, and I was really excited because it was a four star hotel. They had like an offer for a Junior suite for only €60. That’s why I booked it. I arrived and wanted to check-in. The lady looked up my booking, and she tells me, that I actually booked the room for next month. I checked it on booking, and she was right: I actually confused the month. This happened because two days before I had another accommodation booked in Zaragoza, but then I remembered that I needed parking and it didn’t have it. So I wanted to change, cancelled the first one, and found this, but I didn’t notice that instead of January, the date was set at February. I booked it for the right day, but not the right month. I don’t think this has ever happened to me. There have been a few confusions with bus tickets, but I’ve never booked the hotel for the wrong month. Okay, so here’s the first time this happened to me. The lady was friendly enough to cancel my booking for free because I booked it non-refundable. And then obviously I had to pay more money because if you want a hotel for the same night, it’s more expensive, but to be honest with you, I imagine a double room in a four-star hotel more expensive than the €120 I had to pay. I went into the room, and I was blown away. This double room was bigger than a studio in Valencia. I wanted to get a little bit comfy and pulled back the sheets on the bed, only to see that there was hair and stains underneath the sheets, which was disgusting to be honest with you and a shock to find in a four-star hotel. So obviously I called the reception because this was unacceptable. I told them that everything was good so far except the bed. They sent someone up, looked at it, apologised and started changing it. But they actually told me that usually you sleep on the other sheet. I’m not sure how to explain this properly, but you know, there’s a blanket and then there’s a sheet, and underneath there was another sheet, I would call it cover. So there’s the cover as the lowest layer, the sheet to sleep on and the blanket. When I wanted to pull back the blanket, I also pulled back the sheet to sleep on. And that’s how I found that the cover was full with hair and stains, so I actually wasn’t meant to see this. Anyway, they changed it or actually just removed the cover and put a fresh sheet on top of the mattress, but I was in complete shock. To find this in a four-star hotel, I would never have imagined and I don’t rate a lot on Google, but for this hotel, I will write a review because it is freaking disgusting to go to a four-star hotel (or any type of hotel) and find dirty sheets. But other than that, it was really nice to be in this room. I enjoyed it a lot. It even had a bathtub, so I spoiled myself with a bath.

Then today, this morning, I woke up, left the hotel, went on to San Sebastián, but made a little stop in Pamplona, because it was on the way. By the way, this was a route where you can go with or without tolls. And sometimes it’s a huge difference with time and kilometres, but this time, choosing the road without paying tolls was just five minutes longer. So obviously I did that. If you do a road trip I always recommend to check the tolls before. I actually did that in my pre-planning session already, because I knew there were plenty of highways in Spain, where you have to pay. I already had to pay going to Andorra and it was quite expensive (around 15 or 18 euros).

I went on to Pamplona. And again, it was a really nice, beautiful city. If you get the chance, you can go have a stop over there, it’s definitely worth it.

Then I continued my way to San Sebastián. I checked into my hotel. It had free parking, so I left my car there and took a bus to the city centre.  I’m not going to lie: This place blew my mind. It left me speechless. Wow, San Sebastián is so beautiful!

It’s probably the most beautiful town or city I have seen in Spain. I cannot even put into words, how beautiful it was. I came here on a Sunday and there were only a handful of people on the beach. In Valencia, no matter the season, it’s always full with people, especially on a Sunday.

It was just this beautiful combination of a city surrounded by mountains, with a beach, a forest and a castle. It was just impressive. First, I walked around the beach area a bit, and then I walked up the hill to the castle. The view up there was breathtaking.

Out of interest, I looked at rent prices and I wasn’t surprised that they were pretty high. Probably higher than Valencia, which goes to say a lot, because I’m actually moving away from Valencia because of the high rent prices. But San Sebastián, I swear, is definitely a place you could live in. Another thing I loved were the signs on the beach saying that they do not allow smoking there. I feel like the whole world should prohibit smoking on the beach because it’s so disgusting to have cigarettes there.

I spent the whole afternoon in San Sebastián, and tomorrow I’m going to continue my journey to Bilbao.