We have made great time and have put a lot of miles under
the wheels, so we’re actually a few days ahead of where we’d planned to
be. So a short ride today of about
40 miles to Girona. Girona is a
great city that has a ton of pro cyclists living nearby. We hope to do some fun routes in the
hills tomorrow before heading to the seashore again.
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| Leaving Figueres |
We made some good progress yesterday on dealing with Correos
and our bike case, with the invaluable help of a friend who works at a law firm
in Alicante. We still have no
assurance that we’ll get the case, but we should know by sometime tomorrow.
There is not a lot to say about Olot, the medium sized town
we stayed in last night. The town
is renowned for its volcanic calderas that ring the village, but we were pretty
tired last night and chose to watch a World Cup match instead of hiking up the
hill. Our ride yesterday was only
around 50 miles but had 2,800 feet of climbing and the climbs were all about
10%. Some days you have legs; some
days you don’t. This day was a
don’t.
We passed through the tiny village of Besalu, which is very
pretty and has a bridge that dates back to the early middle ages. It is in great shape. We took lunch here.
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| Besalu |
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| Besalu Bridge |
In Olot we stayed at a very small and uber modern hotel that
we knew would have good WiFi and a printer and scanner. The owner’s daughter had lived in
London for 5 years and had perfect English (in addition to Catalan, Spanish,
French, Italian and Dutch).
Anyway, she helped me get the Declarations that I needed to sign for
Correos. Super helpful.
A few beers in the bar and lights out by 10.
This morning we had coffee in the café that was attached to
the hotel and headed out for the relatively short ride to Girona. About 35 miles.
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| Roundabout art in Olot |
We climbed 1,000 or so feet just out of
Olot and it was downhill the rest of the way. I will add, however, that at one point the grade was 17%. That’s steep even to walk up. We rode on one of Spain’s many cycle
paths, this one called Routa Carrilet.
The path is an old railway line that has been converted for
cyclists. The surface is dirt, but
it is very smooth and we could easily cruise at 35 kph except in corners. It was super fun (though Lorie thought
we were for sure going to crash…).
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| Outside of Olot |
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| Onto the Carrilet path |
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| The Pyrenees along Carrilet |
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| Cruising on the Carrilet |
The outskirts of Girona are nothing to look at. Kind of like going through
Gresham. But once you get into
Girona it changes quickly and it is a beautiful city with a large old quarter
where the streets are about as wide as a wagon. There are also lots of hills.
We’d made a reservation in a hotel Lorie found on the
interweb called Hotel Historic; it looked good in the photos. We’d tried to book online a few days
ago, but that didn’t work so well.
So I called them yesterday and booked the room.
The hotel is just next to the cathedral at the top of some
very, very steep cobbled narrow roads.
We finally found the place and it is super cool. It is an old, old building that has
been restored to include modern furnishings. The walls are the old stone walls, but everything else is
upgraded. There is a big
display case in the lobby that has cycling jerseys from 15 or so major pro
teams (Garmin, Trek Factory, and older teams like Rabobank, Prodil, and a bunch
of others) and each of the jerseys is signed by well-known cyclists. I asked the guy at the desk and he said
that all the pro teams use the hotel and it is normal for the hotel to be
filled with cyclists. Cool.
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| Cycling Jerseys on Display, Hotel Historic, Girona |
The routine is getting pretty normal: get cleaned up and go
explore the town. Girona is big,
but it’s center feels small and quaint.
We walked the top of the wall that surrounds the old quarter to get our
bearings. It is pretty hot and
muggy and a beer was in order. So
be it!
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| Beer. Not as good as Oregon beer, but beer. |
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