One of the first things we noticed about Tarragona was how clean it was. The people here seem to take cleanliness to a new level. First thing every day the beaches would be "swept" with a machine picking up unwanted items and making the beaches smooth and white. Street sweepers went past regularly and after a local market finished up the area was immediately swept and hosed down. On most streets were a line of recycling bins which continued underground into a much larger skip sized bins. The city streets were filled with little grocery stores selling the most welcoming fruit and veg at bargain prices, and everyone we passed seemed happy. One of the first people we spoke too was the tourist bureau lady who couldn't wait to tell us what to go and see.

Although we were eager to get out and see the sights more pressing tasks required attention. Shopping, clothes washing, showering and recharging the laptop. The last three being tasks we had previously taken for granted but were recently finding out to be not so easy living out of a van. Our first win for the day was finding out what the Spanish word for self service laundromat was (our previous searches using english having come up blank) which led us to a nice little laundry. As an added advantage this was situated across the road from a gym which we were told had showering facilities. After a nice little workout we both headed off to wash off only to find the showers were communal (in the respective male/female area)!!! We both had the fastest shower ever and although it was short lived we felt much better for it afterwards. Our final task for the day was to recharge our electronic devices, something that now required a constant cycling of each into the single car cigarette lighter which wasn't always viable if we weren't recharging the car batteries as often.  MacDonalds once again came to our rescue being the only place in the shopping centre we visited with an available power plug... I guess one day we should actually buy something from them... Our day ended parked next to one of Tarragona's wonderful beaches feeling refreshed and recharged.

We woke the following day to a beach sunrise which we could view from the backdoor of the van. I decided to walk down to the shore and get a few nice photos, leaving Kayla in the car for a few moments finishing her breakfast with the car started and warming up. A few minutes later Kayla tapped me on the shoulder and suggested we should head off for the day. This turned out to be very difficult because when Kayla had left the running car the doors had been locked and so outside we had to remain. We began to go through our options to get back in:

• Jimmy a window... who were we fooling,
• Calling AA roadside assistance... Policy and phone number were safely in the van... How organised were we!!,
• Smash a window... After about the forth time the one piece of rock we could find on this pristine beach bounced of the window we noticed the "toughened glass" sticker written just below...

This left us with the only option of continuing to search for a way to contact AA. Our initial attempts had ended with a message in spanish which we think may have been Vodafone telling us this call wouldn't work or that it would be fine and sunny. We still haven't figured that out. Finally we found the special number to call from abroad and lodged a request. The only issue we had now was that the number registered with AA was the UK one which was also safely in the car. The one we had now we didn't know the number and for some reason (according to the first AA representative) wasn't showing at his end. Eitherway help was being sent out.

An hour later and with 5% battery left on our only form of communication help arrived and we were shortly on our way. To reward ourselves for our morning adventure we started exploring the Tarragonan city beginning with a bag of authentic Spanish Churros whilst wondering the main street admiring some of the many statues. This was followed by a visit to the Roman amphitheatre and the Tarragonan museum both being quite remarkable, and where we also learnt Tarragona use to be the capital of an area that would be most of modern day Spain. It was quickly starting to become clear that each town we visited was the capital of this country at some stage... according to the locals.

After spending another quiet night in Tarragona and then enjoying coffee on the beach we decided we would continue south to see what else Spain had to offer. Since arriving in UK/Europe we had been amazed at how proliferant wind turbines were as a means of power generation (we had been even more amazed at the number of places that used solar power... in Scotland...). The drive south revealed Spain to be utilising this form of power generation to an amazing level which was understandable due to how much the car was getting blown around.

The disappointing thing was often the state of many of the smaller towns we drove through on our way to Valencia which all looked in a state of disrepair/dispair. This quickly gave way to field after field of orange plantations which were unfortunately swimming in smoke due to each farm burning off old plantation material. This seemed like it would never relent until just as we were arriving at Valencia the air cleared.

Although we had looked forward to visiting Valencia, upon arrival we were more concerned about where we would shower and a quick search for what the city offered revealed little we were interested in. So as the sun was setting we decided to continue our journey on south to warmer weather in the hope of being able to utilise some of the wonderful beaches we were passing. Firstly we drove through Cullera which turned out to be a ghost town of resorts closed for the winter and finally arrived at Tavernes. As fate would have it the place we decided to park for the night, in the back streets of the town, was also where a local brass band had gone to practice and jam. We were luck enough to be entertained and ended another day having experiencing the unexpected once again.