Bye bye Spain, hello France

Yesterday I left Barcelona Spain and three hours later was in Cerbere France. Its a really a strange thing when you cross borders and the language changes, your brain is thinking in English but trying to speak a mix of Spanish and French all at the same time. 

Cerbere is a meca for backpackers, cyclist's on tour and travellers in general and everyone was either getting on a connecting trains or booking their on would trip. After working out there was not an onward train for me that night and booked my on onward train to Marseille for the morning. 

Cerbere main centre has two hotels and it seemed that only one was open and it was full. Although the owner looked sad when he asked if I was a cyclist, I think he wished he could of helped. He pointed me to a b&b which was full as well. I carried on looking around and found a place that looked like a hotel. The strangest thing was there were a lot of people outside waiting for something. So I asked the best way I could. This was a hotel but it was full and the reason for all the people was that it doubles up as a cinema. Very strange but i did find out there that there was a camping site about 4 km away. When I arrived it was pitch black and setting up a tent in darkness is a skill I now process. At least it was free and had a washing area of sorts. I got up at 6am and started backing up my gear, there was no way I was staying there another night.

I got back in the main town at 7.30 am and looked for the bakers. Every town in France has a bakers and seeing people walking the street with French bread sticks confirmed it. It wasn't hard to find the bakery and breakfast consisted of a mix of French pastry and a bottle of water.€5.50 if your wondering. My train didn't leave until 9.39am, so I looked around the marina for a bit until a restaurant opened. A coffee please in English but with a French ascent i asked the waitress and I was a little surprised it worked and I got a coffee but it costs 2.50 euros. So after sitting there for a bit I made my way back to the station. I worked out that my train was on platform B. A little problem here. I had to go down a long flight of stairs and then up the other side of stairs with 50 kilo bike. In the end and taking breaks I managed.