Got lost in BCN 20 years ago, trying to figure out my route since then
Hello to the community! First, I'd like to state that while I can fairly easily read both catalan and castillan (you can reply using them), my writing abilities in these languages are limited to simple, short texts.
So around 2002-2005, while I was a young teenager, my parents and I went South of Barcelona for our summer holiays, probably around Tarragona or Valencia. Back then, they wouldn't pay to drive on the AP-7 so we drove on N-II, and perhaps A-2 as well.
I have some faint, fragmented memories of our attempt to get through Barcelona. Since then, I made several attempts at tracing back our itinerary through the city. I had no knowledge of Google Maps or anything alike back then, I'm not even sure whether we even had Internet at home, and I could not try to trace our route back before my memories got really bad.
From what I remember, as I mentioned, we got Southwards on the N-II until we could get onto the free section of AP-7. I think I remember (but I may mistake with another part more North) that we had to take a ticket at the entrance toll booth, and a few kilometers later when we encountered the main toll gate, we gave the ticket back and had nothing to pay. Then we reached the point where everything got bad. The point where the altapista divided with "Barcelona" on left and "Barcelona" on right. We didn't know which one was the correct one not to get into the city center, but we chose wrong. I think it can easily be identified as the AP-7 x C33 bifurcation Montmeló but in my memories, the road was wider then. I wonder whether the C31 x B20 bifurcation wouldn't match more my memories.
After an uneventful drive that left me with no memories, I remember quite precisely an encounter with a weird location. I can picture the expressway going slightly right, then doing a 360 degrees turn. There were high (brown? dark grey?) sound-proof walls at least on the right side. I don't remember the road being covered at any point. Perhaps some bridges were present over the road. There was at least one, but probably not more exits. We did not use this exit because none of the directions were known from us. Perhaps my memory serves me wrong and this wasn't a total U-turn but it was at least a 270° turn left. My closest guess would be Trinitat Vella interchange but it doesn't quite match my mental picture. Also, I don't think we took an exit to get there, in my memories it really was the end of the expressway.
Seeing that we were really getting lost, we exited the expressway and got ourselves in the city. We drove straight through one or two traffic lights regulated intersections before getting into a small traffic jam. Almost every car ahead of us was headed to the underground parking of a Carrefour hypermarket, which entrance was in front of us. I don't remember whether we turned right or kept straight parallel to the entrance of the car park. I don't think it would be the Carrefour in Badalona, the mall seemed to get out from nowhere in the built-up area (not a retail zone) and the streets were perpendicular. The one in la Maquinista might fit more, but with no certainty, I wonder whether there was a median strip even before the car park.
We kept driving and got into an area which I could qualify as looking like the center of a traditional Spanish village. There could have been a large square, old pines, traditional cafés... We asked our way, then miraculously and, in my memories, surprisingly quickly got ourselves on the B-20. I remember very well the outer lanes being covered by the surface streets. We entered it from perhaps Plaça de Jesús Carrasco or another similar ramp. Aside from this drive on Ronda de Dalt, I don't remember us going through any tunnel.
Next thing I know is after a long drive on B-20, we got to another interchange where we finally found our way, which could be have been "Tarragona", possibly the B-23. I remember that back then, the pavement was in a terrible condition, there was no vegetation, barely any traffic, and the expressway was higher than street level.
After that, we left the expressway, perhaps due to it being tolled afterward, and we ended on a mountainous road. I remember that we went through several villages with a speed controlled traffic light at their entrance.
That's quite everything I can remember about this trip. Solving this riddle would help me a lot for my peace of mind and any information that could help me to trace our way back would be really appreciated. To all of you who read until here, thank you in advance!