Post It from Camping Enmar, Pineda de Mar, Costa Barcelona-Maresme, Catalonia, Spain. Monday 20th Oc

The first and only other time we have stayed on this particular stretch of the Spanish coast was 35 year ago when we had our first foreign holiday together at Calella, next door to where we are staying. Camping Enmar is a family owned and run campsite right in the heart of the town of Pineda and about 150 meters from the sea. From the bar terrace you can see the Mediterranean Sea through the palm trees surrounding the campsite pool. The site seems relatively large with around 300 pitches but many are occupied by seasonal Spanish campers who also store their caravans and awnings at the site for the winter. There are also quite a number of bungalows and we are situated in a pleasant horseshoe area of around 28 pitches for tourers near the reception with a second area further in the campsite with larger and more open pitches. We chose to stay at the former even though the pitches were quite small at around 50m²  because we felt it would be more intimate and would make for a more pleasant stay, we were not disappointed and found everyone to be very friendly.  If you were lucky there were some corner plots that were about double the size and there was quite a turnover of mainly motorhomes during our stay with a few longer stay campers like ourselves.

Being family run the father, his 2 sons and a daughter were very attentive to your needs and exceptionally friendly. Nothing was too much trouble and this attitude was evident throughout our stay. There was even free Wi-Fi so we were able to keep a track of the weather and contact family/friends.

The resort of Pineda had a residential population which made for good shopping opportunities and plenty of restaurants to choose from. There are three weekly markets in the town and if they are your thing there are plenty more easily accessible in adjacent resorts. We often visited them just to enjoy the chuross  which were some of the best we have tasted. There is a train line which runs alongside the beach but the seafront promenade and cycle paths were easily accessed via underpasses. From the train station in Pineda you could catch a train to Barcelona, about an hour away or to Gerona in the opposite direction with stops at the many resorts along the coast in between.

The cycle paths, or tracks in places, meant we could ride into Calella and also up to Malagrat de Mar through Santa Susanna. We could have ridden further north to Loret de Mar but the land became hilly as you entered the Costa Brava and our bikes are not really suitable so we enjoyed repeated rides up and down the coast. There were lots of tourists at Calella and Santa Susanna with many activities going on including an international petanque festival at the latter. We sat and were entertained by a German band on the beach at Calella one day and later in the stay saw further bands playing in the square by the church, it appears they were all part of an international October Festival of music and singing. We also enjoyed the grand finale procession of the ‘Giants’ through the streets of Pineda. Giants from all the resorts and villages along the Costa took part in this last procession of the year and it culminated in the town square where the hundreds of participants awaited the judging to decide this year’s best Giant.

The weather so far has been excellent with good temperatures averaging 25º to 27º C and no rain so far. We are still in shorts and eating outside every night, can’t be bad for mid-October can it. In fact the long term forecast shows it to continue so we shall probably stay here right up to the site closure on 31^st October. There is so much for us to do here and in the adjacent resorts that there is no real need to go further south and the weather is just as good here in any case. If we do stay we can then look to take a leisurely drive back to Calais or look for somewhere else to stay before we lose the decent weather further north through France, decisions, decisions!

We had said at the outset that we only wanted to go as far south as we needed to keep decent weather and it seem like here is just fine. We are spending most of the time relaxing outside reading or on our bikes and Sharon has done some clothes shopping as usual. Plenty of people are in the sea still and also the camp site pool but we have not been tempted so far.

We had a slight mishap on the bikes at Santa Susanna a few days ago when Sharon’s front inner tube blew out. Thankfully I had one of those instant fix canisters which got us back to Pineda and I was able to find a bike shop to purchase a new inner tube when I discovered the split was too big to repair. First puncture in 4 years and we have done 70 plus miles so far this holiday so it was not bad going really.

The final weekend for the Spanish seasonal campers coincided with Spain’s National Day on 12^th October and the campsite came alive with families who came for their last stay. They also had to remove all their kitchen tents but they are allowed to keep their awnings up until the new season starts in March 2015. We also noticed that many of the hotels also closed that weekend and on the Monday there was a certain quietness that settled over the resort. This made for easier riding on the roads so our journeys up into Calella town was now much easier and we could explore Pineda and the surrounding resorts more safely on bike using the roads rather than the seafront cycle path.

The only downside is that we are constantly being bitten by small flies. Everyone is and people have said they have had the same conditions all the way down to Benidorm. We are not sure what is happening but we did not experience this when we were staying here long term and they are worse than those we had earlier in the year here.

I thought I had better post this story before some of you started to wonder where we had got to. We are so relaxed here I did not feel the urge to get the laptop out and start typing. Because we may well be here for further 10 days I think I shall add more news to the story before we leave if anyone wishes to revisit it for an update later. 

Regards, Roy