It was with a mixed emotions that we joined the Friday night commuters cycling 8km down the Avinguda Diagonal to the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s iconic heart. We pedalled slowly, taking in the moment, reluctant to leave our saddles as we came to the end of our journey.
“Though the roads been rocky, it sure feels good to me.”
Bob Marley
After descending from the Pyrenees earlier in the week, we enjoyed three interesting days in small, historic Catalan towns – Solsano, Cardona and Montserrat. Firmly part of Catalonia, signs of the independence movement are everywhere – from the many yellow and red striped flags hanging from balconies to the extensive use of Catalan as the main (and often only) language in hotels and restaurants. A referendum is muted for September 2017 and it seems, from our brief visit, that the independent spirit is even greater here than it is in Scotland. Interesting times!
We joined the All Saints Day celebrations in Solsano on November 1st by tasting the macaroon pastries and sweet wine that families traditionally share that day to honour their ancestors.
Another Catalan food that Andy really liked was a breakfast of pa amb tormaquet. This is lightly toasted bread rubbed with lots of garlic, squashed tomatoes, olive oil and salt, eaten with Iberian ham and cheese. Delicious! Clare would really have preferred a big bowl of muesli.
Cardona is famous for its salt mountain and the impregnable hill top castle built to protect it.
Mined since Roman times, there are 300km of tunnels and galleries running through the salt mountain with tours, of course, conducted exclusively in Catalonian. The castle is now a Parador – a chain of state run hotels that both protect historic buildings across the country and make interesting, unusual places to stay.
Even more spectacular is the monastery at Monserrat, perched precariously 740m up jagged limestone cliffs. Now served by a road, a railway and a cable car it has become one of the biggest tourist destinations in the region with beautiful walks, hotels, restaurants etc. There’s an iconic bike ride up the hill, climbing 600m from the valley below but we quickly agreed to take the funicular railway this time, with all the other sensible people.
In the mountains we had always worn our most serious cycling gear, including the proper padded lycra shorts and tops we had carried through France. It seemed necessary somehow! Now it was back to the favourite old shorts (still held up by safety pins) for the final ride down to Barcelona.
We always thought that last day of cycling from Monserrat to Barcelona would be the most dangerous and so it proved to be, dodging large trucks and speeding cars much of the way. Barcelona is bordered to the north west by a steep, rocky range of hills so all the main roads, rail links and industry are concentrated into two narrow valleys, one to the north and one to the south.
We chose the slightly easier southern route but tried to get off the highways and onto minor roads as much as we could. Unfortunately, the geography often made this impossible so for much of the time we were squeezed into a narrow space between the crash barrier and the trucks. It’s not much fun (especially in tunnels) and needs a lot of concentration. We slotted into our preferred formation of Clare in front and Andy protecting her rear, put our heads down and pedalled furiously. We’d have been a lot less comfortable on roads like this earlier in the trip.
Our attempts to get onto the minor roads meant several more ‘dreadful detours’ as they sometimes morphed unexpectedly into rough tracks. A white line on our map could be a busy dual carriageway through an industrial estate or it could be a winding narrow track that disappears into a footpath. From the map, it’s impossible to tell which is which so it becomes a game of chance.
Our mountain bike practise in the Pyrenees proved invaluable as we negotiated dried river beds and camino (pilgrim) paths. It meant walking a few sections but by this time we were well past caring as we felt safe and anyway, the end was now in sight.
Cycling in Spain has been a bit more challenging than cycling in France as there are a lot less cycle paths, the roads are busier and the highways can be quite narrow. However, most drivers are courteous and the road surface is smooth with very few potholes (helped I suspect by lots of EU money).
So we were relieved to reach the suburbs of Barcelona and the dedicated cycle track down the Avinguda Diagonal was a lovely way to arrive.
We’ve pedalled 2200 km (1375 miles) from Bath to Barcelona, climbed 17,800m and spent 143 hours in our saddles. All with the hairdryer, pillow, pilates balls, beard trimmer, colouring pencils, keyboard and other bits of excess luggage.
After taking some celebration snaps at the Sagreda Familia, we hit the Barca bars to celebrate with our friends, Mark and Susie, who were in town for a conference. They’ve been on biking holidays to Nepal and South America so we happily swapped cycling tales until the restaurant kicked us out in the early hours.
We fly back to Bristol on Wednesday which means that our last task is to pack the bikes (and everything else) in cardboard boxes so they survive the relatively quick journey home.
When we got to La Rochelle a month ago, we said there were 3 reasons we couldn’t yet call ourselves real cyclists:
- We like long coffee stops
- We don’t have a clue how to fix the strange squeaks on our bikes
- We haven’t been up a real mountain yet
Well, we still like long coffee stops and the squeaks have got louder. But we’ve now been up four mountains (three more than we expected to!) So after several glasses of wine, we agreed that we might just start to begin to think of ourselves as real cyclists – so long as Andy doesn’t always have to wear lycra shorts and Clare doesn’t always have to clip in on both sides!
Clare and Andy
Note: Our final post will include some general reflections about our journey plus a few tips for people who, like us, are new to cycle touring but might be thinking of giving it a go.
Please let us know if there’s anything you’re curious about.
Avoiding Potholes 