Spirosbikespain: Getting into the hills

First of all I had a terrible sleep. I felt like shit and couldn't tell if it was from being kept awake by the noisy Spanish folks outside the hotel, or it was too much rich food the night before, or maybe I was even getting sick.

We had a very nice breakfast, a little cheese omelet, fruit in oj, yogurt, some sweet little breads, a vanilla custardy thing, some toasted bread rounds from the loaf the night before (which was home-made and awesome btw, we had stuffed ourselves with that even before the four courses started coming), coffee, water. But I was still too stuffed to enjoy breakfast properly. April did fine though, considering her mindful absence of eating the night before.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we were finally getting into the hills west of Girona, these are essentially the foothills to the Pyrenees. We were also going to be on a hilly road, with some serious climbs in it. And it was going to be a good test to see if these smaller roads got any traffic.

The road was wonderful. Lots of other bikers out, we were the only ones with panniers and touring bikes. Everyone else was in racing gear and bikes. And very little traffic to start.

We had some pretty good climbs up to around 1500 feet, but we know how to manage them by this point. We passed some great medieval villages but they didn't seem to have restaurants. Finally we hit Sant Pau, and it had a bustling cafe, but we weren't hungry yet. I wasn't sure when I was going to be hungry again.

We entered Garrotxa National Park, which are a bunch of extinct volcanoes. These are mostly smaller volcanic cones, sometimes hard to even pick out, but it was beautiful country side. Very green, a mixture of hardwoods and conifer forests. Lots of farms.

Traffic started to pick up as headed downhill into Olot. The parking lots for the short hikes to volcano cones or views were packed. Seemed weird for a Tuesday. And lots of motor bikes out. These are the worst. Incredibly loud, they're always leaning into the curves and coming closer to us than cars.

We had done some tripadvisor research for hotels in Olot, and had picked one out, even got the directions for it, but as we dropped downhill into Olot, there was our targeted hotel rght on the busy road, two miles from town. What the heck? Maybe there are two Can Blancs. We get into Olot, pick our way through traffic to our supposed hotel, and there's a different hotel at the address. It seemed tripadvisor had the addresses mixed up.

Well we didn't like this other hotel, too expensive, so we aimed back into the center of town in search of a hotel agreeable to both of us. This is always a tricky proposition in a larger town. We're at a corner, should we go left or right, or straight? We both have somewhat strong opinions. I push for following some signs to another hotel, we go for few blocks but it's getting too far out of the center, and who knows when we'll get there. April starts leading to more of the old town, and we find an old town square, and there's a small pension we had read about in Lonely Planet.

It's locked and is totally dark inside. Looks like it hasn't been used for a few months. There's a door bell so we ring it. Nothing. I start to walk away and the door buzzes to let us in. Huh? We walk in, it's dark, no one is there. We sit there for about 3-4 minutes, and we're finally ready to walk out when some old guy comes out of a side door with a couple of empty plates in his hand. Seems he had been eating lunch? He only speaks Catalan, but we work out that we want a room for the night. He brings us up the elevator, it's one of those tiny Euro jobs that hold about 4 people, he's chatting away in Catalan at us, and he's got wicked garlic breath, he kind of had buggy eyes with strong glasses on, sort of weird mannerisms. Didn't feel too positive in that elevator. Haha.

He shows us the room on the third floor, actually seemed ok, small, had to take a plastic cover off the bed, but what the hell, it was either that or start looking in the town some more. So we took it. $34E for the two of us. Cheapest room yet. We passed on breakfast cause we had no idea what he'd feed us.

We were the only ones in the hotel. Three empty floors. April was a little freaked out. Haha.

We showered then went out for the late lunch, at like 3:00, right below us in the square. I was still feeling crappy, but we had a nice fixed price plate of the day. April had a garlic spaghetti, then a fish course. I had a a couscous salad and steak frites. Both had chocolate cakes for dessert.

Then I wanted to nap, but April wanted to wander. Guess which one we did? There was a cinder cone within walking distance to the hotel. We walked up there. Then we rambled around the town. Turns out it was a pseudo holiday because it was May 1st. It was like Labor Day, and they had tons of sales on products. So people came from all around to check out the sales. And there were lots of street booths to capitalize on the people traffic. Fun and interesting.

I continued to feel worse. We were too full for dinner, so we just split a falafel plate at a middle eastern takeout place. Then we hit the sack. We barricaded the door to our room. Just kidding. It was all fine. In the night we heard at least two more parties who had rooms. Or maybe that was the guy running the place wandering around at night!!

Some pics...

The lake at Banyoles.