Wednesday, June 23rd
Now that it’s been 2 months since the trip I have to rely even more on my skimpy notes. So I think the next few installments will be leaning towards ‘more pictures’ and ‘less chat’.
Today was going to take us out of France for the last time, and into Spain for the rest of the trip. We did mostly N260, which is really a great ride for being a fairly major road. There was one section early on that was fairly narrow with Armco right on the edge on both sides that was a little unnerving. Very twisty and narrow, big drop-offs, and no shoulder on either side. Today was also very hot, with temps getting into the 90’s.
We stopped for a snack break along the way, and I took that opportunity to take my riding pants apart and remove the zip-in tailbone protector that had been making me uncomfortable for large parts of the trip so far. Huge improvement with it out for the rest of the trip.
Lunch was at a nice side-of-the-road place with just 4 tables outside. Not a word of English was spoken by the nice lady who tried her best to help us order some food. Some of the nice folks at the other tables even joined in to assist! She brought out some delicious bread, ham and cheese without prompting. There were some gorgeous classic bikes right out front, an Ariel and a Velocette. The couple eating next to us were old enough to maybe have been the original owners ☺. As we started eating a truck hauling cows pulled up a few yards away so we had an interesting soundtrack to accompany our meal.
After lunch it was a pretty short ride to our hotel for the night in El Pont de Suert, Spain. Neat location, right in a private little piazza. We were pretty hot and tired today so we decided to just park up the bikes, get showered and check out the town. Like most of the hotels we’ve stayed at, the secure bike parking was a walk from the hotel.
The courtyard/piazza/square…
My room had a great view
Time for a local cerveza
Town had lots of narrow alleyways
Peter and I
Just your garden variety touring accordion(?) school group. And yes, that one girl is giving me the stinkeye for photographing them
No celebrations for the night we were there unfortunately. We did see lots of broomsticks around town (go back up and look at the front of our hotel for instance). And all the kids were throwing firecrackers around town. Unfortunately I’m pretty jumpy, so each time one would go off my heart would skip a beat and I’d tense up. Made for a stressful evening. Didn’t help that even a small firecracker set off in a narrow stone alley sounds like TNT.
Beautiful park and river in town…
…where we watched this guy practice slack line. He was pretty incredible – and did most of it with a cigarette glued to his lip
Old part of town was really, really cool
The flag of the Catalan separatists
Kids play soccer in Spain? Really? LOL
Dinner that night was at the local tapas place, and was quite good. Some of the items on the menu were pretty hysterical though – ‘cooked guts’ was probably the funniest. Watched Italy v Ireland Euro Cup game.
Dinner place
Meatballs and a sausage that was every bit as good as the ones cooked up in Austin. Don’t recall what the other dish was
Old town was even cooler at night
Route for the day
