Adios Espana, Allo Franca (no parlez-vous!!!!)

Blanes to Spain to Narbonne, France

Day 24 - Wednesday - July 6 - Blanes to Figueres, Spain
Doug being a crazy guy off his bike trying to get a picture while balanced on the jersey barrier in his bike shoes.

Unloading in hotel lobbies is sometime a challenge. The bikes had to go into a parking structure across the street. Doug locked them to a water pipe on the ceiling......very tricky.

Loading up is always fun too!

Those are the Pyrenees in stretching out before us.

We didn't know they ranked mechanics by their height!

Those Romans really did get around.

We didn't stop but would like to find out about this later.....in  English.

At La Jonquera all the semi trucks took the tollway north so our road got much quieter.

Almost there and almost over the Pyrenees too. The top of the pass was only 983', pretty short after watching all those Tour de France "top of the Col" finishes the last few years.

Spain really knows how to say goodby.

We thought it must be a really rigorous crossing at the border checkpoint given the line of cars backed up here.

And the machine guns; but they were only looking for bicyclists trying to carry contraband across the border....not.

In reality, the traffic was only snarled by shoppers in Le Perthus, the French town on the other side of the border. The guys in yellow are directing people to parking places! Pedestrians just walked right in front of us without looking several times and we were going uphill. We were very glad to be done with that town.

This was our smell of the day......petunias on the bridge into Le Boulou, a  lovely little town that was much more sane than the border town.

Bryan and Linda are an Irish couple who have been living in this part of France for many years. They would have invited us home for the night but sadly already had guests waiting for them. They gave us some good information to help with our first day in France.

We did get a room with a view at Lac de la Raho.

Day 26 - Friday - July 8
We moved campsites in the dark due to noisy neighbors. In the morning, we found this ant super highway right outside our door.

Perpignan's version on the city bikes. The bike paths had us almost all the way through town in record time and then we took one wrong turn at a big traffic circle. The problem with traffic circles is that they give you so many opportunities to make a mistake. Oh well.

France is looking a lot like Spain.

Raphael, the cafe owner's son, joined us for lunch. Even though he didn't understand any of Doug's French, they were immediate buddies.

He is a very busy 3 year old.

After rolling terrain all morning it was up the hill after lunch........not quite fair on a full stomach.

Yep, and it was a headwind besides.

Narbonne is in sight.

Barcelona and La Sagrada Familia

Barcelona to Blanes

Day 22 - Monday - July 4
"City bikes" are an integral component of Barcelona's transportation system.   The  bikes and  the velo stations are regularly maintained.  Vans are used to redistribute the bikes to the various stations.

The the line of people waiting for the  Sagrada Famila Cathedral to open already wrapped around the building 45 minutes  before opening time.  The cathedral was designed by Antoni Gaudi,and construction began 1882.  It is expected to be completed 2026.

All cathedrals are pretty impressive, but this one is spectacular.  

The Choir Loft!

The inside has been completed and the sanctuary was consecrated last November. The remaining work is on the exterior and finishing the stain glass windows.

Looking up at the ceiling.

View of Barcelona from one of the cathedral's towers. We took the elevator up.

That's Donna looking inside the cathedral tower as we walked down the stairs.

The steep spiral staircase inside the tower is a challenge with trifocals.

Donna wired for sound.  We were actually participating in a very interesting tour of the  Sagrada Familia.   The headphones allowed us to hear the tour guide who could talk at normal volume even with a large crowd around her.

This bull-fighting ring was on the walk back to the hotel.

At the post office in Barcelona mailing our supply  box  to Paris. We had to take a number.

We did get to watch snatches of the Tour de France, as opportunities presented  themselves. It had started on Saturday so this was Stage 3.

Barcelona was a busy place, especially when it started to come to life around 5:00 PM.

Day 23 - Tuesday - July 5
We are on the road again. We checked out bike paths/routes last night so that we could get out of town a lot faster than we came in.

This young woman just rode in circles until the light turned green.

Almost out of town but not done with really tall, unique buildings.

While crossing this bridge we gave our spare bus passes to an elderly gentleman sitting admiring the view.  He was quite surprised but very gracious as well.

A little heavy industry on the way out of town but still a nice bikeway.

Our home for the night at a campground in Blanes. No grass but it was relatively quiet and  spacious. We had tried to stay in Tordera which was about 5 miles inland but the town had no hotels or campgrounds at all because they are all on the coast.

Typical "annual pitches". The people pay for the whole year and just leave their trailers there. Some of them are quite elaborate set-ups.