A lecture on mindless eating.

Another good sleep, there was a little rain last night. Standard euro breakfast. And the good news is the chocolate shop next door was open. Yesterday I had noticed that it said, "world champion..." on the front, so we looked up the proprietor, Olivier Bajard, and sure enough he was some hot shot baker/chocolatier. But the shop was closed last night. So we picked up some caramel, dark chocolate squares for today. They're fantastic.

We head over to the train station, and we have an hour to wait. You'll remember we're training back to Spain today, too much traffic in France, and too many big climbs back. As we're waiting April comes to the firm conclusion that I'm guilty of "mindless eating". This idea came to her as we split a chocolate ice cream cone yesterday. She handed it to me, and i proceeded to eat it, and continue to eat it, including the cone, until she asked for it back. Didn't seem so terrrible to me. So she gets on this rant how I should be practicing "mindful eating", how I just finish food on the plate, how she doesn't get her share, on and on. She's really liking her thinking. Then she remembers Danny O'Connor's tactic for when he can't finish the food on his plate, he just cuts it into bite size chunks, and he claims Jayne and I eventually pick at it and eventually consume the whole thing. Mindless eating!!! Haha.

Sounds like a good theory, but we'll see some mindful overeating in just a bit.

We get off the train just south of Figueres, Spain in a tiny town, and start riding towards Banyoles. Now the good thing is we don't have a super detailed map like we had in the lower Emporda, so April doesn't have the ability to direct us onto the dirt roads, cause she doesn't know where they go. But everytime we see one she slows down and says, "you think that's a bike route?" In fact she starts out so focused on the dirt roads I can tell she's not riding mindfully! She's not riding in the moment! So I give her a little lecture on enjoying the current roads, which btw are absolutely perfect. Good pavement, no cars, rolling with some short hills, beautiful scenery. It kind of looks like vermont, or brittany, or england. Everything is green. The only issue is rain is threatening but the clouds are amazing. I'm living in the moment! Check out the clouds:




After a while she starts to get into it and realizes it is superb. In fact I declare we've hit the sweet spot, low enough traffic for her, fast enough for me. She doesn't even notice that she's ignoring the dirt roads. And she's not complaining when the few cars do pass us. Progress!

Now lets see about the food thing.

We pass through a number of tiny towns that are really dead, no restaurants. Finally we hit the town of Bascara, and there's a bar on the corner. It doesn't look great but it's our only choice. And we're really hungry cause we didn't eat alot last nite for dinner. In we go, hmm, not bad, clean, the local guys are having coffee and shooting the shit, the menu is only in Catalan, and the bartender/waitress only speaks Catalan. Not even Spanish out here. We order the only things we recognize, I get a hamburger plate and April gets a butifarra plate (bratwurst). And we order cokes; the sugar and caffeine are really great for biking. The waitress brings us a big basket of bread. We devour it. Then the plates come, I have a hamburger patty, 6 double-wide strips of bacon, an egg, and fries. April has a grilled, split, extra long butifarra, fries and an egg. And we have two nice little salads. We ignore the salads and start pounding the fat, meat and fries. April eats two of my pieces of bacon. The egg and yoke is all mixed in. We get another basket of bread and we're dipping it in the grease. The cokes are perfect. We haven't touched our water, nor the salads. We clean our plates and finally take a breath.

I comment on the "mindless eating". April is at a loss for words, she can't quite figure out what came over her. It's like she came over to the dark side. She sheepishly starts on the salad and the water. Whereas I'm starting to think about dinner. I mean you have to be committed, right?

But this biking really does build the appetite. Now I can really understand how Nicky O'C was going for like 4 cheeseburgers a day on his last tour.

The riding after lunch continues to be wonderful. We can see the Pyrenees covered in white snow. No cars. Beautiful rolling fields, farms, and forests.








We hit Banyoles, our town for the night. This is where they had the rowing events for the Barcelona Olympics. It has the largest natural lake in Catalonia.

We had read about a really nice inn, Ca L'Arpa. The restaurant is supposed to be good. We eventually find it, and lo and behold the restaurant has a Michelin star!! The chef signs us in, it's a modern boutique type of hotel. Best shower on the trip so far. Dinner starts at 9:00. I'm doing everything i can to prevent April from falling asleep.





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Location:Passeig de la Indústria,Banyoles,Spain

Quintessential day in Europe

Had a great sleep after all those climbs yesterday. Went down for our petit dejeuner in the Salon de The. It seems kind of weird the Salon de The has tea/snacks and women's clothes. We saw another one with the same format.
Had cafe au lait plus a baguette and a croissant with butter and jam. Seemingly unhealthy but you really start to like this.

According to the plan we were going to take a ride north to check out the beaches and flatter stretch of coastline. But first we walked to the train station to check out the schedule for trains back into Spain. Also I had remembered that sometimes trains and bikes don't mix well in France. You often have to put the bike in this weird bag before some trains will accept the bike. The woman at the station informed us we could just load the bikes right on and keep them in the larger section between the train cars.

Jesus, April was so thrilled that I got a hug! Seemed like it was her happiest single moment of the trip. Wonder how it's going to go when we get into the Pyrenees?

There was a market in town and sure enough there was our favorite vendor: the rotisserie chicken truck; it looked so good. The best part is they have the potatoes sitting under the rotating chickens and they absorb all the fat and juices. Plus they were roasting guinea hens, and sausage, and some pork things. So the potatoes were getting all those mixed juices and fat. Phenomenal!!!

But the problem is it was too early to eat, we had just eaten breakfast and had a ride scheduled. Crestfallen, is an appropriate word for that moment.

So we went back to the hotel, got dressed, got the bikes and away we went. Had to ride past the market on the way out. Like salt in the wound. We had done some research and found a bike lane plus hiking paths to make our way north. Found the route easily enough, it got a little rough at times. But we made it over the hills down to the flats.

We came upon the petit settlement of Le Rocou. Supposedly it has declared itself independent from France, and considers itself catalan. Really just a tiny neighborhood, but a good example of the strong Catalan roots in this area.

We continued north, came upon the large boardwalk, it went on for a few miles, beautiful houses along this stretch, some dating from the late 1800s. But the wind was blowing like crazy off the shore. It was sunny but too cold for the beach because of the wind. So we decided to turn around.

I immediately starting calculating the time, the route, and the rotisserie chicken. If we hurried we just might make it back in time. I didn't want to push it, or get too excited, but the door was open just a crack.

It was still kind of early for lunch. We checked out a few restaurants on the way back but nothing looked outstanding. We didn't know if the market would still be going, or if there would be any chickens left, still we decided to go for it.

But it wasn't to be that easy...

We kind of got lost pushing our bikes up a hill heading back. On the journey out there was a fork in the dirt road/path and we went right and had to carry our bikes down a steep path. So we figured we'd try the other fork on the way back. Bad idea. We pass some guys who tell us we can't make it back this way, there are only train tracks. But hey we know better, right? We continue on, the track gets smaller and steeper and tighter. At one point going up the hill I had to push the bike on front of me cause the trail wasn't wide enough for me and the bike. Pickers again scratching us. And we have to push over this huge bees nest in a hole in the ground. Luckily no stings. I'm not making this shit up. April is like a moth to the flame for stuff like this.

And I'm seeing my chicken lunch evaporate in front of me.

Finally we hit the top of the hill, and voila, not only is there a lookout area with some signage (and another route up to it, so we were on some rogue trail) but there's the path down we were looking for. Down we go with rotisserie chicken on our minds. We pound the uphill back to town, then speed down to the market. Yikes it's closing. We rush over on the road behind the chicken truck, jump off the bikes, I dig out my wallet, April watches the bikes, and I run into the market. I see the woman cleaning the rotisserie, but there are two chickens left in the glass case!!!! YES! Maybe this is my happiest moment of the trip. Haha. And there are potatoes! Ooh-la-la. She bags everything up for us, gives me some napkins too. April runs over to find the bread stand we had seen earlier, but that was in fact packed up. Oh well we're eating too much bread anyway.

We head to the seashore, find a bench by the beach, pick up a coke and a fanta, which will cut the grease, and dig in. Sooo freakin good! There's a ton of oil, fat, and juice at the bottom of the potato container and we're dunking the chicken and the potatoes in this fat. Licking our fingers. Perfect.

We ride back to the hotel, shower, and now you're supposed to nap, right? But it had finally gotten warmer, our sunniest day of the trip, so we head out for a beer, some gelato, and some desserts and stuff. We sit in the cafe chairs by the beach. Great people watching. There's a slight cool sea breeze to balance the hot sun. Perfect weather. Finally we head back to the hotel for the nap.

Here's a picture of April chillin away the afternoon. Now you make ask, why no pictures in the blog? It's because we can't download our pictures from the camera to the stupid iPad. So I had to take this picture with the iPad, which is the worlds largest camera.




After our break we head out for dinner. I had done some research on restaurants and picked my top two. At 7:00, we head over to the best one and it's closed. Or maybe it just seems closed. There's a window open and there's a pot of stew or something cooking on the stove top. It smells great, maybe a lamb stew? I try to convince April to wait, but she's having none of it. Some early food revolt thoughts are brewing in her head. We go to my next choice and it seems too expensive. Finally April declares she only wants a salad for dinner. Huh? I've seen this before. When we were in Italy with Dan and Jayne, Danny did this food revolt thing. He in fact said he was quitting eating altogether. It seems Jayne and I had a little more passion for all things food, than old Mr. Peanut butter and banana sandwich. haha.

So now April seems to have hit her breaking point. She said we should call this trip a culinary tour not a bike tour. Not to worry, I'll get her into the Pyrenees and those hills will get her back in the food saddle!

But sure enough we went to a simple little tourist restaurant and April got her salad, which she didn't really like, and I had some mussels and frites, which I really liked. Somehow that seemed fitting to me.

Off to bed, but kind of hungry.

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Location:Rue de la République,Collioure AOC,France

Hardest day yet.

We had been hearing about this very nice town, Colliuore, just across the border in France; a few bike tour companies include it on their guided tours. And the Lebanese guy at the restaurant yesterday told us the road was good, basically one long uphill then a huge downhill. And the map showed a nice inland pass, the Col de Banyuls, which lead back into Spain for a subsequent day, so we decided to try this loop. Surprise, surprise.

First as we noted yesterday we had a 5K climb out of Cadaques. No problem, we expected it. We had a big breakfast, then hit the climb. There wasn't much traffic, we moved up pretty steadily and hit the top after about 30 minutes. Then we had about an 8K downhill, really sweet. There were tons of bikers out today cause it's a weekend, halfway down the hill April commented that everyone we're seeing is really tough cause we're all on this major climb. So she was loving the tough biker image. Didn't last long though.

After the downhill we hit the coast at El Port de la Salva. Then we started climbing again, thinking ok, this is the start of the one big climb. But we dropped into the next town, Llance, then climbed again. Whatever, we're getting good at climbing, so there's one extra hill in here, we can see up the road and imagine that high crest we see is the start of the "final" downhill. But no, we drop down to sea level again at Colera. Steep climb out of the town again. Now we're started to get pissed. This climb is pretty long and steep with switchbacks, a road branches off near the top and goes even higher but we swing around and see a tunnel. Awesome, it cuts through the top portion. We love tunnels, it means you're avoiding some killer hill. We're certain this will be the big downhill. But no again, we just drop sharply to Portbou, which is the last town at the border, and there's a huge climb past it. What the hell!!

We take a break in Portbou, and find a bakery. April has a custard filled croissant and I have a coconut muffin. The whole town was out enjoying the central square. Nice atmosphere, old guys walking while holding each other up, we see some hikers doing the GR 92, which is a long distance coastal hike, kids are running around. Of course the Greeks started all this with their central squares, or plakas. Or maybe it was the Albanians who invented it and passed it to the Greeks. Haha!

Suitably loaded up with sugar we head up the pass, it's our steepest section so far for the day, huge switchbacks. We get up to the border, and we see another big downhill into Banyols-Sur-Mer, with a monster climb after it. We're sort of just resigned about the whole thing by this point. And the truth is we're dialed in to our breathing and gears and pace. We cruise down into Banyuls and stop for lunch. We're excited to be in France because we imagine we can speak the language.

Well our French is really rusty, half of it is coming out in Spanish, si, gracias, hola, como esta, whatever. I persist in speaking as much French as I can and all the waiters are speaking in English back to me. It was like, "ok, we get it, you can speak shitty french, now lets get this order completed, i have work to do," haha!

This part of France used to be either Catalan or associated with it, so the menus are half Catalan: crema Catalan, Catalan sausage, tapas, etc. April has the fish special and I have a Catalan sausage with frites. Both excellent.

We order a tea after lunch and load it with sugar to help us get going but no such luck. With full stomachs the climb out of banyuls seemed really tough, and to make matters worse there were a lot more cars. Just north of Banyuls it's all vineyards and wineries, so there were lots of people out touring the vineyards. Sucked for us. Finally dropped into Port-Vendres, which is right south of Collioure, and we make our way through town and drop down into Collioure. And it's freakin packed! The most people we've seen since Barcelona. Traffic stopped in town cause there are so many cars and people. We didn't expect this at all.

We had scoped out a hotel on tripadvisor the night before. We found it and they had two rooms available. I send April in the check out the room selection, it would be unthinkable for me to pick the room. I chat up the guy at the hotel and i get the scoop on the people and traffic. Tuesday is the first of May which is a big French holiday. Thus people also take off Monday and make it a four day weekend. And Collioire is a very popular holiday spot so everyone is visiting. What a drag.

In fact about 1/2 way thru the day, when we had had enough of the hills, I had proprosed a new plan to April. Let's ride for 2-3 more days north along the flat coast to the nice beaches, and the let's train back into Spain, hence avoiding all these damn hills on the way back. We were all excited about this plan. But now we realize everything might be too booked and crowded in France because of the holiday. too much traffic.

So we created another plan, which is stay here in Collioire a second night, and go for a day ride north tomorrow. The we'll have time to check out the town more also. The town is really cool. Old castles and forts right on the sea, lots of restaurants and shops, even a church to visit!

We found a good tapas place for dinner. It was tiny. I was sitting against the wall facing towards the kitchen so I could watch the chef and our table had to be pushed against my belly. I think this cut down on eating capacity. We had a french paella dish made with noodles instead of rice, chickpeas with cumin, garlic chicken, oven potatoes with a garlicky aoli, baba ganouj, bread, 1/2 liter of a local red wine, and then April wanted to try a cannelloni type of spread, which ended up tasting like Mac and cheese. Weird. April talked me out of dessert because we had desserts at lunch. I agreed figuring I'd have a gelato out on the street, but all the gelato stands seemed closed. Maybe a sign??

We figured we climbed at least four thousand feet today. The climbs were about 600-1000 feet each and we did about 5-6 climbs. And the worst is you never get to pedal much on the rolling or flats, it was all uphill, then a coast downhill. So we pretty much just climbed all day. Chris Dubois would have been thrilled.



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Location:Rue de la République,Collioure AOC,France

Rest day in Cadaques.

Our town and our hotel/room are so nice we decided to take rest day in Cadaques. Actually it's not really a rest day as we planned a hike along the coast in the Cap de Creus park.

Very nice breakfast which included scrambled eggs, the first we've seen on the trip. As usual we ate like pigs: croissants, baguettes, butter, jam, yogurt, fruit, coffee, juice, ham and cheese, and now add in the eggs. Yikes. I think we're actually gaining weight. We usually end up with a big lunch too, and then the great dinners late at night. Plus we're always having dessert cause they sound so good; usually at lunch and dinner; we never do that at home.

So we came up with a plan: we decided to try to have only two big meals per day, and only one desert. Thus if we had a big breakfast, and a big lunch with dessert, then the goal is to have a very light dinner. Unfortunately we haven't actually been successful implementing this plan. I get to the dinner, and I get all excited and talk April into a few more items, while we're pounding the bread and olive oil, and before we know it it's 10:30 and we're finishing our second choc dessert of the day.

Like tonite, first I had to talk April into even going to dinner, she was laying in bed tired, and at first claimed she didn't want to eat at all. Then she wanted me to go get a pizza to-go and we'd eat in the room. But I kept working it (whining?), claimed it was my last chance for great paella, how the restaurant was #2 on tripadvisor, etc, etc. And finally she caved, she claimed she'd hear about it for the rest of the trip if we had skipped, but once we were there we split a large salad, then had a two-person bowl of zarzuela (catalan seafood stew) two baskets of bread, and then two desserts. April had a lemon curd thing with lemon ice cream, and I had this awesome plate of frozen yogurt on a bed of tomato jam and basil oil. Stunningly refreshing. Didn't seem like the flavors would merge well but they did.

And that was after a fantastic lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, where we had taboule, dolmades, baba ganouj, and a red pepper spread, and lots of Syrian bread. Didn't have dessert at lunch though. Minor victory. We ate a late lunch and we chatted with the owner for a long time, met his two little girls. He was a bit of a renaissance man, artist, composer, inventor, cook, etc. Claimed he had houses in lebanon, algeria, cyprus, france and here in cadaques. Interesting guy but talked too much about himself. Can't learn anything if you spend your whole time talking.

To build up these appetites, we had done a nice hike in the morning, not too long, maybe 4 miles total, but interesting walking along the seashore. Got lost once, had to bushwhack thru the scrub to get back on an old trail that followed along cliffs down to the village. Tried to visit Dali's house but you needed a reservation; it's so small they only allow like 12 people in every 30 minutes.

We caught up on our wash, btw, we wash all our stuff by hand. April sewed a few items. I caught up on the blog. We bought a new map, planned our next few days. We'll probably cross over into France for one day on the coast road if it's not too busy and then come back to Spain over the Col de Banyuls. And we read and had a nice easy day.

Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow! And we start out with a 5K uphill, it's going to be a killer because we won't have had any time to warmup our legs.


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Location:Carrer de Pianc,Cadaqués,Spain

Some dissension in the ranks!

Interesting day, lots of variety, with both April and Pete taking turns pouting. Haha.

We start out with April claiming there's a boardwalk on the beach all the way up to Roses. Didn't seem like that to me, but our map was crappy cause we had just crossed into a new area called the Alt d'Emborda and hadn't found a good map yet, so maybe it was true. We go about 2K and hit pure beach sand. There's a funky bridge going over a small stream, the other side looks dumpy with some trailer parks or something up ahead. But we push our bikes thru the soft beach sand and get on some crappy dirt track. Now there's nothing more hellish for bikes than beach sand. I can just feel the grit getting onto the chain and into the hubs and derallieur. Then we hit a fence enclosing a trailer park so we have to head inland, thru a bunch of junk tossed over the fence. Can't we just ride on the roads like normal bike tourists?

We finally hit a paved road, and take a fast ride on it for a few K much to april's chagrin, but wait, there's a path down towards the sea again so down we go. Now I'm pouty and april's happy. We meander north thru a bird sanctuary cum campground area. And we're blocked by a river so we have to hit the road and ride about 10K on a fairly busy road. I pass the pouty face over to April and we push forward. Going pretty fast I might add, it feels so good to be zipping along, wind at our back, going 20-30K/hr. April's hunched over like the wicked witch of the west trying to shutout the traffic. And I'm chatting away happily about how nice it is. Look at these flowers, check out the cows, what's that tree, traffic's not too bad, great to have that wind at our back. I mean I'm really working it, but April's having none of it, she's locked into Wicked Witch mode.

And on and on it goes...

We hit a town, Castello d'Empuries, and take about freakin 30 minutes trying to find some maps. We finally find a tourist info center, and the guy gives us a map and directions so we can avoid the busy road to Roses, which is just about 10K away mind you. Out we go on the small rural road, it's really nice, April is thrilled, we see some other cyclists, "see how nice this is!" We flush out some monster herons. There are birds everywhere. I'm ready to admit defeat, but not before one final pout, "yes but we could have been there by now." April's so happy she ignores me.

We go over three bridges as instructed, then have to turn right down a dirt path. It seems a little rough, and then it gets really rough. Fist sized rocks, loose gravel, some mud. Then it becomes flooded! Two women come out from the path and tell us it's too flooded to go down. Nice. We have to carefully walk our bikes on the sides of the deep pools, we're getting scratched by thorns, we almost fall in. The bikes are getting muddy again. From feast to famine just like that. I'm back in the game, I can legitimately gripe again!!! Maybe I even have the upper hand! Not sure if I should be happy or pouty. Haha.

Anyway we make it thru the "challenging" dirt road and stop in a market for some food for lunch: bread, tomato, cheese, avocado and snickers bars. We eat our lunch in an ancient olive grove next to the road. Hmm a fair number of cars heading up the road we'll soon be on. We finish up our snickers then start up the big hill towards Cadaques. This is a small seaside village where Dali lived much of his life. It's way out on a peninsula and we have to a steep 10K climb to about 1500 feet, and then we have a 10K downhill to Cadaques. April dislikes both the uphill and the downhill. But as Krisy Sims says, April is the toughest woman she knows, so I know she'll be a trooper.

We start the climb, the wind is blowing like hell, gusts to around 30 mph, sometimes behind us and often to the side, threatening to blow us into the traffic. There's no shoulder. The wind really catches us because of our bike bags. We stop a couple of times for water and pix, and eventually hit the top. I'm really happy and April is shall we say, less than happy. It's really cold on top. Maritime clouds are whipping by. We put on our coats and start the downhill, April gets into hunch formation and away we go. The first 3-4K are actually gradual, perfect coasting. Then it gets steeper but not as bad as what we came up. Overall it wasn't as bad as we expected.

We cruise into Cadaques and score a great price on the #1 hotel on Tripadvisor, plus we have a sweet room overlooking the harbor with a nice balcony, the bed is good, they have a steam room, free wifi. Life is good again!! All the days frustration evaporate, we're happy as clams. April takes a steamer, we get a great local restaurant recommendation, sure enough we have a wonderful meal, then a nice stroll thru town before we hit the sack. How sweet it is!


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Location:Carrer de Pianc,Cadaqués,Spain

Easy day back to the coast. Massages!

After that eventful day yesterday, we were looking for an easy day today. We're heading back across the plains to the coast again.

The Brit from our B+B in Calella had recommended a hotel in d'Empuries. And it looked like there was hiking nearby and some ancient Greek and Roman ruins right next to the hotel. So off we went.

Even though it was sunny, April had memories of being in the cold rain yesterday so she dressed up in her long riding tights and long sleeve wool shirt. Then she was hot almost immediately. No skillz.

We again had the mix of paved and dirt. Nothing special to report. We saw some people collecting wild asparagus. It's getting late in the season for it because all the grasses are growing up hence it's hard to spot the asparagus. We've only seen it once while riding.

At the last town before the coast, I had the map, and I managed to sneak us onto a fantastic paved road. There was a dirt bike path that we normally would have followed, but I "accidentally" steered us to the paved road. Not only was the 8K stretch fantastic, it was even more pleasurable because of it's illicit nature. Haha. Life's little pleasures!

We got to the hotel early, like 2:00, and signed up for the romantic package, which meant we got the room, breakfast, dinner and two massages at the hotel spa. We couldn't resist. Ate lunch at the hotel restaurant. Fixed price of $25E each. Sort of a ripoff. But we figure what the hell, it was supposedly a good restaurant, and we were right on the beach terrace. April had a tomato tart, then a grilled monk fish, and a little cake thing for dessert. I had a cod sashimi type of thing, a steak (entrecôte), and then some home made chocolate ice cream for dessert. Also had water and wine.

Service was very slow, quite unlike most of the places we've eaten. I've been loving that the Spanish take your order and get the food out quickly. Not like in Italy where you have to freakin beg for the check at the end of the meal. And the other thing is the Spanish are very friendly yet very matter of fact. They're warmer than the French, and they don't behave like they're the lead actor in some melodrama like the Italians. Haha, what the hell, some generalizations.

After lunch we explored the beach, then hit the spa for the massages. Turns out they were great. In expected euro fashion they gave April the male masseuse, while I had the female. In the mens changing room they gave me a locker, and in there was a pair of sandals, a super short robe, a long terry cloth robe, and what looked like the eye covers for airplanes. Well I wasn't going to put on the short robe as my ass would have been hanging out, and i certainly didn't need the eye covers, so i just donned the long robe and went au natural underneath. And in a slight tweak of expected protocol, in the massage room, my masseuse said hang the robe on the hook then jump on the table, and she stood there waiting. Hmm. I guess they don't make a big deal out of being naked here. So I whipped off the robe and jumped on the table.

Like I said the massage was very good. They used a ton of oil, which I really like because my hair doesn't get pulled that way.

Then afterwards April says to me, "so weren't those underwear things weird?" I say, "what underwear, my locker had eye covers." April starts laughing, that wasn't eye covers, it was a mini underwear thing, which explained the short robe, and the masseuse telling me to hang up my robe while she stood there. Haha!! Live and learn. Couldn't quite understand why I needed those eye covers.

We walked the beach again. Looked at the ruins which were just a bunch of low lying rocks. Nothing significant left. The history is this was first Greek settlement on the Iberian peninsula, around 600 BC. Then the Romans showed up around 200 BC to cut off Hannibal's supply route. The whole show was abandoned about 200 AD, after the Germanic tribes came down and kicked ass.

We chilled a little before dinner. I noticed my white t-shirt had some oil stains on it, I must have spilled some olive oil on it during lunch. Then I notice 30 minutes later, more oil spots. Turns out there was still so much oil on my chest that it was soaking and staining my t-shirt. What a drag, as I only have two.

So we go to dinner expecting this nice fancy meal, and the menu is the same fixed menu from lunch. Huh! I get pissedI tell the waiter we can't eat that same meal again, April gets mad at me, but finally we all settle down and they cook us some different options, chicken and cod. All's well that ends well.

Now for the finale of the Romantic Package!!!! Only in my dreams, as we both fall asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.


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Location:Carrer de Pianc,Cadaqués,Spain

The Rain in Spain stays mainly on the Plain....

Eventful day! Capped off by Barcelona failing to advance in the Euro champions league semi-finals. They tied Chelsea, from England, 2-2, disaster for all the Catalonians.

We decided to stay another night at our inn, Can Masa, in La Pera, so we can ride today without our gear. The bikes feel so light, which is great cause we're heading up a famous mtn called Els Angels. Lance Armstrong used to ride this road regularly when he trained out of Girona. We were ascending from the east side, shorter and steeper, a 6K climb. The road starts out fine, steep but not insane, we go about 1K and psst, I get another flat! Three flats in two days, this isn't good. As I change it about 20 riders come racing down and they're all pedaling down the hill, serious shit. We get going again and I'm on pins and needles trying to avoid rocks, gravel, etc. The road is marked every kilometer, we break at the 2k mark and the 4k mark for water, but we're doing pretty well. We just take our time, aprils knee is fine, and sure enough make it to the top with no drama. Great view. We can see back to Girona, where we started and east to the sea, where we've been for the past few days. The climb gives us a lot of confidence for tackling the Pyrenees later in our trip.

We head on down, and it so happens that April brakes almost the entire way, and never changes her legs position, so her knee cramps up. Really??

We head over to Monells, another beautiful medieval town, and stop for lunch. April had the Butifarra, which is like a Spanish bratwurst, with white beans, and I had a rabbit souvlaki type of thing with fries. Awesome. The regular food here is very good. We've determined the standard fare is about 80% as good as the expensive food, yet it's about half the price. As we eat rain is threatening but not actually falling. So we continue on in a big loop to check out some more villages.

We head down a dirt road, it becomes a dirt path, then it gets very rough, sort of like a Mtn bike path. I'm leading and trying to keep on pedaling rather than walk the bikes, the trail gets soft with some deep ruts, I try to push thru a deep rut, hit a rock then start to fall to my right. Nothing worse than falling while clipped in. You're madly trying to twist your cleated shoe out of the pedal clip but invariably it stays locked in. So I tumble to my right and fall right into a patch of stinging nettles and this other plant that sticks all over you.

Now this is a special moment. You can tell a lot about your relationship in these types of situations. Concern? Empathy? Love? How about just a little help? Not a chance. Instead April is behind me laughing like there's no tomorrow! She got the biggest freakin kick out of me falling and trying to unclip, then standing up with that stupid sticky vine all over me. That's 30 years of marriage for you.

So we keep going and finally the rain starts. And then it begins to really pour. We take shelter in a covered bus stop. Wait about 20 minutes and then we get frustrated waiting, so we head out as it lightens up a little. Remember we were just day-riding so we didn't have our rain coats or neoprene booties, or warmer gloves etc. Well the rains didn't let up, and we get soaked, and worse we're on a dirt path which is now a muddy path, so the bikes are a mess. It sucks to suck.

The rain stops, the sun sort of comes out, but we're pretty cold, so we take a short cut back to the inn, and April remembers she wants to see the house Salvador Dali bought for his crazy wife named Gala. Damn it. Of course we stop. It's this old castle like structure. Dali was crazy and his wife, Gala was even crazier. She only accepted the house, if Dali agreed to the clause that he could only visit her when she invited him. I hope April doesn't get that idea for me and Bainbridge, haha. Dali liked this situation cause it inflamed his passion for her. The house was really weird. Very sparse. Weird shit in it. Bizarre in many ways. Supposedly Gala used to call up the young local boys for some action even into her later years. And the story also goes that after she died Dali drove her around for a day in their big blue cadillac. I think Dali was a bit of a poser. Very creative but I've never seen any amazing art that he did.

Finally we get back to the inn, still chilled. I clean off the bikes, put on a new back tire, we shower, then we hit the local cafe for dinner and the soccer game. I must have been channeling Nicky O'Connor cause I got a cheeseburger and beer for dinner. Haha. The cafe got packed. Barca went up 2-0, and the locals were going crazy. We left at half time with Barca up 2-1. Seemed like everything was under control, but Chelsea eventually tied the game, and moved on to the finals based on points from earlier games. The Catalonians will be depressed for days.

Back over to the coast tomorrow.


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Location:Camí dels Enamorats,Escala,Spain

The Plains of Spain. 4/23.

Back to riding again. We're in an area called the Baix d'Emporda, the lower Emporda. It's a beautiful flat to rolling area between Girona and the coast. The are all these wonderfully preserved medieval villages scattered about. And there are designated bike routes throughout the whole area. Sometimes the routes are on paved roads, sometimes on dirt roads, sometimes on dirt paths. And there are special bike route signs all along the routes, which even give distances to the next signs, intersections or towns. really awesome.

It's all farmland, and then the towns are usually on some slight hill with a fortified wall and a church in the middle. Really picturesque. And amazingly well preserved with people still living in the old structures. Beautiful stone arches throughout all these towns, and tons of little alley ways and nooks. It's hard to get April out of these towns once we get in.

So we start riding with an uphill to Begur. We were going to visit a little cove from Begur but it would have been very steep getting down there, and hell getting back. So we skipped it. On the big downhill out of Begur I got a flat. Changed it quickly then away we went. Got on the dirt roads with all the bike signs. April loves these side roads. We're stopping for pictures all the time. we stop in an amazing village called Pals. Then we hit some beautiful paved roads. There are wild poppies everywhere. And yellow mustard seed plants. Makes for very pretty riding. We stop for lunch in another stunning village, Peratellada. Great lunch.

I notice a shortcut on the map, and it seems to be paved, so I make a nice compelling argument for going that way, April agrees, then no sooner do we go 20 yards and I get another flat. WTF! Back tire again, different spot. April gives me a mini lecture about avoiding glass, then seems to find sort of a serendipitous satisfaction about MY flat on MY route. For my part I'm sensing I must be carrying too much weight. Gear, not body weight.

We meander along, hit a few more villages, argue about where to stay for the night. April read a nice tripadvisor review of a small inn in La Pera by a biking couple from Minnesota, so she's locked in to this place. I was pushing for an inn our previous innkeeper had recommended. So the vote was a tie and of course I lost. Dan and I tried to explain this formula to Chris Dubois at the wedding. Not sure he quite understood. He'll learn, we all do.

I call ahead, explain to the woman in garbled French/Spanglish that we want a room and will be there in 30 minutes. She seems to agree. We get there at 5:45, exactly 30 minutes later, and no one is answering the door. This town is really deserted. It's like something out of a Sergio Leoni spaghetti west. We wait 15-20 minutes. Nothing. I call two more times, no answer. Of course I'm feeling sort of smug cause this was April's choice. Haha.

Finally she shows, let's us in, she speaks no English, but we work it out, the room is great, we're the only ones here, the shower is great, and we have to hurry to the only cafe in town which closes at 7:00. We're not in Barcalona anymore. Well the cafe is great and everything turns out wonderfully. April is fully redeemed. We even have pretty fast wifi. In fact we like it so much we decide we'll stay a second night and day ride up some hills tomorrow.

We hit the sack incredibly satisfied. Sleeping soundly when Paul Flessner decides to drunk-Skype us at 1:30 AM our time!!!??? What the hell.

Tomorrow, Els Angels!


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Hiking along the coast, Calella de Palafrugel to Tamariu, 4/22.

We took the day off from riding, and planned a hiking day. We got this idea from an old Brit we met at a B+B in England during our coast to coast hike. He and his wife had bike toured in France about 50 years ago and told us they always rode one day, then took a rest day to enjoy town they were in on the second day. As you might imagine, April loved this idea.

Pretty good breakfast at the Brit-run B+B, but not as good as the full English breakfast you get in England. Then we started hiking north along the coast; big test for my new super light hiking shoes. Before we left I was obsessing about the weight we had to carry, so I wanted the lightest pair of shoes I could find that would still suffice for day hiking. I found some 4.3 oz trail runners from new balance, bought them, tried them out in the Olympics and they were great until we hit some light snow. Then my feet got soaked. Turns out there were gaps between the bottom treads, that let water into the insole. Breathability I guess. Anyway this was a non-starter. So then I began looking for a second pair much to the consternation, or perhaps the better word is aggravation, of my loving wife. Bought the second pair, they're about 7 oz. Better sole. Like Katie O'Connor said: rich people's problems.

Anyway away we go, up the headlands to a light house. Awesome views. Then a steep descent to a tiny cove, up the cliff again, there were 20 switchbacks on this section, then a gradual descent into Tamariu. Gorgeous coastline. Sure enough, a two hour hike one way. The new shoes kicked ass. They're so light it's like having moccasins on. And you have to hike slightly differently, you can't bang your heel down. In fact you can feel even a leaf underfoot. This is the whole barefoot running thing. I like it, I'm like twinkle-toes prancing around on the trail. Think of a nimble deer, or a cat; you get the picture. Haha.

We have a nice lunch in Tamariu, and then head back. It always seems shorter going back. We passed lots of hikers. Made it back In two hours again. Feet were fine. April is using one pair of shoes for both riding and day hiking so she has a sturdier hiking shoe. She's not clipped in on her bike, she uses the old foot cage system. I was debating it but couldn't pass up getting more gear.

Chilled in our room for awhile, then walked down to town for dinner. To our surprise, almost everything was closed up. It still is very early in the season, so many places close Sunday night, especially if the weather isn't great. This area is where the barcelonians come for the weekend in nice early season weather. But we found a beach front restaurant, it was much more expensive than our tapas from last night. But we had a great chocolate fondant for dessert.

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Fantastic riding on the coast, 4/21

Had a great sleep, finally adjusting to the time zone, it's still nice and cool especially at night. Standard breakfast then we headed out north on the coast. We wanted to get an early start before the traffic started. The map indicated a crazy twisted road from Tossa to Sant Feliu de Guixols, maybe 3-4x longer than the distance as the crow flies. We started out climbing right away, but the grade was reasonable. This was going to be a big test for April's knee, she got a cortisone shot in her knee right before we left.

The road was beautiful. Great surface, amazing views up and down the coast. Incredibly blue water. Gorgeous coves. This area reminds us of the Amalfi coast, but it's less developed here. Turns out there weren't a lot of cars, the road is too slow for them. In fact we saw more bikers than cars! How great is that? And we were able to move along at a good clip; our aerobics and legs are fine. Emma and Chris might have some problems keeping up with us when they get here! Hahaha. Anyway this was a fantastic stretch, as nice as anything we've ever ridden.

Then we hit some more developed areas and towns. But we have this 1:50000 scale map that shows designated bike roads/paths, and this guided us thru the towns pretty well. Then we hit the board walk before Palamos and the Bike Gods were throwing fairy dust on us. First we had an awesome lunch on the board walk, grilled lamb and frites, salad with tuna, then the wind was behind us as we cycled north along the wide boardwalk. Great people watching, passed a mini fair, there was a spinning class on the boardwalk, and the path went all away around the peninsula and we got to avoid the traffic in the main town. So sweet!

After Palamos April wanted to head down to some secluded undeveloped beach, and we sort of got lost finding the dirt paths down it. And these two young punks started following us on their bikes. So we find ourselves deeper and deeper in the woods on these sketchy paths. Classic April adventure. But finally we came upon some bike signs, and wound out way down to this beach, had to walk the bikes in a few spots. We lost the punks. The beach was fine, but nothing we hadn't seen before. And we managed to find a shortcut out back to the main paths.

The riding here was great too cause there are no cars on these back roads. We meandered our way over to Palafrugell then headed down to the coast to Calella de Palafrugell, the beach town.

As we pulled into Calella, we realized we didn't know the name of the place we had reserved. We had done some research in Tossa, and April reserved us two nights at the B+B run by some Brit expats. But we hadn't written the name down, just knew it from the web. Wanksters. We just knew there was a hill with a 10% grade right past the house. So we're riding into town, we pass a house with some name on it, I ask if that's the house, sure enough we see the 10% grade sign, so voila we happened right upon it. better to be lucky than good. Then being Brits the woman offered us hot tea and cookies. April was so thrilled, she loves the Brit stuff. She was close to asking for overly crunchy white bread toast with orange marmalade but managed to restrain herself. Haha.

We got a tower room, which was a round room in a tower kind of structure. April had a nice hot shower and used all the hot water. No skills. I pouted a little cause this place had like 25 five-star reviews on tripadvisor and I had no freakin hot water. We walked the five minutes down the 10% hill down to the beach to a recommended tapas joint. Great cheap little place. We bought 8 different tapas, wine, dessert, and the bill came to about $35E. Not bad.

One important note, Real Madrid was playing Barcelona for some championship game on tv, and everyone but us was super focused on the game. I happened to be seated away from the tv, it was behind me, and everyone else in the place was facing me and the tv. We left before it was done, I think they thought we were crazy for leaving.

Talked to Dan and Jayne on their mobile Skype and Dan recommended this iPad app. Nice work Danny boy.

And tomorrow we're taking the day off from riding and planning on a two hour hike along the coast to the tiny village of Timariu.


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First day riding, 4/20

Finally on the road! Got up kind of early and April wanted to get a few miles in before breakfast. We often do this as it builds up our appetite, especially here where we eat so late we're sometimes even full when we wake up. So we found the greenway south out of Girona. The greenway is a dirt path, sometimes a converted railway bed; April loves them and I'm mixed. No traffic, but they really slow you down. Our bikes and tires are designed to handle dirt, yet they're still very good road tires.

We stop about 10k out of town, find a bar that has coffee and breakfast, I manage to ask for an omelette with ham and cheese. Nice.

Then we continue on the greenway which is very well marked here. Little bike signs which also have mileage on them. Great system. We get into the farmland, and can see the road in the distance and the road cyclists moving pretty fast, while we're meandering along. Sigh, April loves this stuff.

Finally at llagostera we have to get on the paved road. It feels so fast and easy. From here we head south and east over some hills to the coast. We get moving along at a good clip then hit the hills. This section is ~16K, we're not sure if its mostly up, up and down, whatever. I have to shift down to my smaller sprocket up front for the first time, and my front derallieur won't shift onto the smaller sprocket. WTF? We stop, I adjust the screws, it still won't shift down. I adjust my crank, maybe I tightened it down too much? No it's fine. Finally I determine the derallieur must have been bent a little during transport. This sucks. But I sort of bend it back and then it works.

So back up the hill, wasn't too bad, the weight makes a huge difference but we keep it in low gear. Lots of cyclists passing in the other direction. It's great to see all the riders. Clearly a big biking culture. So it turns out we crest the hill at about 6-8K and then it's rolling and even more downhill to the coast. Freakin awesome! We were thrilled cruising down the down hill. Passed some German bike tourists climbing up, they got the shitty end of the stick!

Finally we pull in to Tossa de Mar, our beach town for the night. April has us in a tiny inn right on water at the end of the beach. It's fantastic, we get a little room that looks right out on the beach. Great showers. We're early enough for lunch, they eat late here, maybe 2:00. We get on the Internet, check out yelp and tripadvisor and find a good place for lunch. Sure enough the lunch place was awesome, we had this buratta cheese appetizer that was amazing. Then we had a pizza and a dried tomato pesto pasta dish. All superb. Nice wine. Perfect lead in to a nap. From our lunch spot we can down the gorgeous beach we can see hotel at the end and this really cool castle right on a point and hill next to out hotel. The sun is shining, light breeze, I say hopefully, "let's hit the beach and chill, maybe a quick nap?" April says, "well I think we should explore the castle." Damn it! I knew it. In fact I'm wondering if I'm ever gonna get to relax on the beach.

So we get to walk across the beach, then slog up all those steps up to the old fort/castle. Yes it's cool. The view up and down the coast is amazing. There are a number of these medieval forts all along the Costa Brava. Lots of fighting all along here over the past 2-3000 years. The Greeks, the Romans, the Moors, the French vs the Catalans, Hannibal, etc.

We finally get back to the hotel like at 5:00. Out for dinner close by, nothing special, except for some drunk Russians, who were arguing with the waiter about soccer stars. Pele vs Messi vs Zidane.

One more thing, it turns out we're slightly ahead of the tourist season, in fact a number places are closed weekdays. But it's great for us, enough places are open, and there are very few tourists and cars. You can see that it will be a zoo here in the summer. But right now it's fantastic. And it will allow us to wander in to a town and always find a place to stay and no places are full. Pretty sweet.

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La Ramblas

Ok it's nighttime again, quiet, can't tell what time it is and I'm laying in bed trying to feel a tingling on top of my ear. Try as I may I can't feel anything. When I did the vipassana class I could feel all sorts of tingling up there. Now I'm laying in bed wide awake, meditation isn't working, so I haul my sorry ass to the bathroom, avoid the bidet, and turn on the light to check the time. It's freakin 4:30 again, "shit!", which causes April to wake up. I get a little scolding then she turns over and falls back asleep instantly. That woman can sleep!!! I get up and and finish "Wild", a book about a woman hiking solo on the PCT. She was a bit of a newbie, but she toughed it out. Makes me wish I was on a long distance trek, but I can't really say that to April or she'd kill me. Hahaha.

I had to meet Colin at 8:30, from worldreader.org, a non-profit Peter/Paul/rob sponsored, that is bringing ereaders to kids in Africa. I was going to be busy until 2:30 with world reader and April was going to walk around barc. We both had a great day, WR is super exciting and really ramping up. April visited a Gaudi house, Casa Batlo, she really liked it, all sorts of crazy organic curves, built around 1904, as part of the modernista movement. These modernist guys were really creative, and sort of crazy. They're responsible for all the crazy buildings, shapes, colors etc in barc.

April and I meet up for lunch, have a great meal at a tapas and montaditos place. The montaditos are little open faced sandwiches. Then we walked down the Ramblas, the main people watching drag. It was kind of weird cause the shops weren't great yet it was still packed and mostly people were just strolling up and down the street. Almost like a caricature of an interesting place. But the market was awesome, the meat, fish and veg shops were kickass. The meat shops had all sorts of innards, skulls, hooves, etc. Couldn't even tell what half the shit was.

After la Ramblas we veered over to the gothic medieval religious area. Standard church stuff, totally over done, probably responsible for thousands of deaths. They're big into Jesus stuff here.

Then we hit the apt for a short nap, finalized all the bike prep, packed, went to dinner around the block then hit the sack. Off to Girona the next day.



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First day in Barcelona

Note: this IPad has been so painful that I started sending emails instead of blogging. But that sucked too. So that tech savvy mobile blogger Dan O'Connor suggested an app for the iPad and now I'm using that. These first two entries might be repeats for some folks. And the dates will be off until i catch up, but hopefully these will be chronological. Whatever...

.......

Flights were actually pretty easy. We upgraded to bus class at the gate for the overnight to london for 25% of the going rate, we were happy on those flat beds, food was good and we arrived in london fairly rested, and the good thing was we got to use the first class lounge for the four hr layover, skillz. Then we slept on the short flight to barc, and easily found a large taxi to our apt. The guy was late getting us the key so we we had to sit on the sidewalk for about an hour. He finally showed, then proceeded to give us a ton of info about barc, the area and the restaurants, etc. The apt is in a superb location, in the eixample area, we can walk to everything, including our chores scheduled for the next day. Finally went out to eat at about 9 oclock, all locals that late, had great tapas, bread with evoo and crushed tomatoes, escalivada, which is a onions, peppers sometimes eggplant mixture, catalan potatoes, squid, vegie couquettes, and a nice house rioja. Looks like the food is going to be good. Back to the apt and to bed at midnight.

Then the trouble starts. No not food poisoning again, just sleeping problems. I wake up at four am, stumble into the bathroom, back my way towards the toilet seat to sit and pee, then sit, and i,m sitting on the cover. Huh? So i lift it, then sit and almost fall in. Wtf, i must have lifted the seat too, so then i put it down again and i sit on the cover again, finally i,m so confused i have to turn on the light, turns out i sat in the bidet! Haha. Never really noticed earlier that the bidet had a cover, seems rare to me. Finally i sit on the right equipment and finish up. Hit the sack again. April is sound asleep and frankly snoring like a drunken sailor, so i become wide awake. I try some vipassana meditation, doesnt work, april quiets down a little and im just laying ther listening to my heartbeat, the watch next to me, and aprils breathing. For like two freakin hours!! Finally i get up at six and read. April manages to sleep until eight oclock! Truly impressive, april wakes up and i talk her ear off cause ive been up for four hours with no one to talk to.

We hit the corner cafe for cafe con leche and croissants, typical euro tasty but unheatly breakfast. Then for our big task, we put our bikes together, tooK about three hours, not bad. Then we headed out for chores. Unlocked our phone and got a new sim card, got cash, walked to pay for our apt, had a nice lunch at a small dive bar our apt guy receommended, wandered around lost for awhile ethen found thetrain station and bought our tickets for girona. Super productive day, and all within walking distance of the apt. Home for a nap, then had another good dinner at 9:00 again at another restaurant around the corner. Hit the sack again at midnight.

Next day, explore barc...


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Second day in Girona.

Jesus nothing but freaking troubles with these blog entries. Now i see they're getting posted out of order. The correct order is:

Day before leaving
First day in Barcelona
La Ramblas
Girona
Second day in Girona


Nice sleep, apt was fairly quiet. A few more chores to do and then we're heading out the next day.

First we had to fix our phone. We had bought a new sim card in Barc but when the phone reboots it asks for the sim password, which we didn't have. When we got the phone the woman never gave us the pas info, she just had us type it in. So we found a Movistar office (our local carrier) and with some garbled communication we got it fixed for 6 Euros. Could have been worse.

Speaking of language problems we're really hurting. That is, there's such a mix of languages here that we're totally thrashing when we try to speak. There's regular Spanish, then barcalonian Spanish whereby they use "th" instead of "c"' ie grathias. Then there's Catalan and it's often used. Plus there a lot of French tourists so you hear that and the locals sometimes use it with us. And there's some Italians around and you hear that. So when it comes time to speak you never know what's going to come out of our mouths. It's often French, since we sort of speak French it feels natural to jump to that when everyone is speaking something we don't quite understand. Often we'll produce one whole sentence out of a mix of English, Spanish and French; with maybe a grazie thrown in at the end. The epitome of our ineptness ws when this woman says "ola" to April and she replied with "Voila!" hahaha.

Ok back to Girona, toured the Jewish museum, they started getting shafted here around 1200. Forced to convert to Christianity or get burned. Eventually they all got forced out of Girona.

Back to the current world: we were looking for some oils for our skin which dries out when riding. We checked out the pharmacies, which are located every 100 yards or so. Nothing natural. Then we found this great natural oil store, we got all excited, started rubbing the testers all over, I slathered a nice rose oil on my legs, then we happened to check the price, $50-$70 Euros for a tiny bottle!! We made some reference about not wanting to carry the glass bottle and snuck out of the shop. Then I spied some oils in one of the sex shops. In we go past the dildos and the elderly gentleman shopping for some new toys, and April says, "What are those for"?! Haha. They had a good selection of oils, but not enough natural ingredients. Then we tried a hippie store and sure enough some natural oils from India. Scored a nice plastic bottle for $4 euros. Skills.

For dinner we went to the restaurant Sam Starr had recommended, Vintages. Sam works for a bike tour company out of Girona in the summer. Sure enough it was fantastic, best meal of the trip so far. Had a great plate of Burata, which kind of like fresh mozzarella but better. Also has a shrimp plate and boneless rabbit dish.

Off to bed and ready to ride tomorrow.

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Girona

On the third night in Barc, April couldn't sleep and I could. And when she can't sleep she fusses and futzes and harumphs and tosses and turns. Kind of like Snufflepuss on Sesame Street. Hahaha. anyway I kicked her out at 4:30, and slept for a few more hours.

We biked to the Train station, couldn't find the subway entrance, walked back and forth for a few blocks, then it turns out it was right next to us. Shits weak. When we asked the ticket vendor about the bikes the previous day he said just put them on the last car. So we got on the last car, it was a regular car, we put the bikes right in the aisle, and luckily it wasn't crowded cause this didn't seem right. Sure enough when the conductor punched our tickets he told us to move the bikes 4 cars up and there were bike hangers there. So we had to haul them up there, looking like wanksters, bumping people as we moved up the aisles.

Got to Girona, found the tourist info office, bought some maps, located our hotel, which also rented out our apt, they walked us to our apt, and we settled in. Girona is really nice. Small enough, yet very cultured. Lots of great restaurants. Lance Armstrong use to live here when he was winning all those Tour de France races. It's a great biking center.

We had a big lunch, many restaurants offer a fixed price 3 course menu, plus wine for anywhere from about 9-18 euros. I had braised pig cheeks and April had a duck, turnip, carrots, and peas combo. Both awesome.

Of course April wanted to walk around after lunch and I wanted to sleep. We walked for a short bit, i actually fell asleep in a sunny park, then April wanted to walk about the town wall so I hit the apt for a nap, and the Tiger (April's nickname) prowled around the town.

We were still full at dinner time so we just had a gyro and falafels at about 10:00 at night. How are we ever going to bike on these hours?

The day before leaving.

A new blog for all the ardent fans of our previous two bike/hike trip blogs! This time we're spending a month biking through Catalonia Spain.

Readers may recall that April and I sometimes quibble over the style of our trips, April likes to hike and I like to bike. April was arguing for a hiking trip along the Lycian Way, which is a 300 mile walk along the coast of Turkey. I was pushing for a ride in Spain. My arguments weren't really carrying the day until April read an article that she found about biking in Majorca. Then it became her idea, and now we're going to Spain. Funny how that works, huh.

And the best thing is last night we decided to skip Majorca, the ferry was too slow, 8 Hrs, overnight, pain in the ass and expensive if we got a room, so now we're back to the original plan of just cruising around Catalonia, which is the region northeast of Barcelona. We're going to spend a few days in Barcelona. I'm going to visit the folks at worldreader.org, a wonderful non-profit that is bringing ebooks to classrooms and children in Africa. Then we're going to take a train to Girona and start our ride around Catalonia.

Girona is where alot of pros, including Lance Armstrong, have houses, and do their early spring rides getting ready for the summer racing season. There are plains, the coast, foothills, and the Pyrenees all within a day or so from Girona. We have no set itinerary, we're just going to wing it each day. we're carrying just our clothes and tools, no camping gear. We'll stay in hotels, B and Bs, etc, and eat in restaurants, Travel light, travel right! Probably carrying about 20 ponds each. so the next post will be from Spain.

Also this freakin iPad is a huge pain in the ass to type on. The keyboard sucks. And the app sucks, there a menu overlying the right side of the scene that I can't get rid of. So well have to see just how painful it is.