I am off again on 10 May 2012 at 1000 hours. Switzerland is fairly boring with its strictly enforced 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit on country roads, so I use the motorway to get me to Geneva. Once in France the fun part begins. I have to hurry southwards to avoid the bad weather that is sweeping into the country from the North, but which is supposed not to affect the deep south all that much. So after 480 km I end the day at the town of Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs in the Isère department.
At 0900 hours I am on the road. Rhône-Alpes, Gard and Hérault are under my wheels today. Here is a picture to give you an idea what type of countryside that is:
And here is another one from the Languedoc-Roussillon near Saint-Mathieu-de-Tréviers.
Here is a video from my onboard camera shot today near Clermont-l'Hérault:
If you check the tracklog for today then you will see that Tigger is a transformer and has changed into a jetplane. This jetplane
took off this morning and flew the distance from the hotel to Limoux.
However, the truth is quite different; when I changed to another pre-programmed route at
Limoux, the rotten GPS unit wiped the
125 km already covered this morning. Did I mention where that buggy crap thing is made? Oh, you guessed it already...
The reason why this journey is called "Unfinished business part I" is because the route from Limoux onwards is practically the same
I was biking during the previous permanent vacation in 2006. Because the alternator on old Kitty failed I had to abandon that
journey back then. So let's see how it works out this time. Here is an image from a pass near
Mijanès:
In the afternoon the funny game of finding petrol in rural France before the shops close for the weekend begins again. At the first filling station they tell me that the pump for petrol is there just to make it look nice. The guy only sells diesel. The second one is closed, but I try my foreign credit cards - with the expected "Card rejected" message. The third one is cards only, but in the middle of a shopping precinct. I talk to the nearest local guy and convince him to accept 20 Euros in cash and use his French credit card to get the pump going. I think this must be the 20th time over the past years that I had to do this in France - this is the third world if you need petrol and you are a foreigner.
I end the day in Mont-Louis near the Spanish border.
Today a fine treat awaits; the fabulous N260 road from the Spanish border westwards. I rode that road all day, and this video shows you how that is:
I wish I had that kind of road every day - and there is a good chance for more of the same tomorrow. The hotel I end up near the town of Biescas charges 28 Euros per night and a tank full of petrol gets you some change back from a 20 Euro note - this is biker's bliss, just like in 2006...
Yesterday evening I received an E-Mail from Switzerland, informing me that at 900 metres above sea they had 5 degrees Celsius while I at my hotel at Gavin (1000 metres above sea) at the same time had 28 degrees Celsius and bright sunshine - I like Northern Spain in May. Yesterday I also asked about breakfast at the reception - I suggested 8 am in the morning. Shocked staff is looking at me - that early? We agree 9.30 am then, that appears to be more along the lines of the local people
So as a result I am off late at 10 am. The weather is brilliant and the temperature is just right for motorbiking: about 17 degrees when I start, increasing to about 26 degrees in the afternoon. Here is a picture of today’s countryside:
I end up the day after 400 glorious kilometres at a town with the tongue-breaking name of Villarcayo de Merindad de Castilla la Vieja.
This morning it is 6 degrees outside - I shouldn't have mocked the Swiss weather yesterday.
I put on some extra layers on and set off at 10 am. I am heading further westwards through the mountains and at one
stage in the Picos de Europa Mountain range
I get to 1600 metres above sea. Luckily it got a bit warmer during the day, so it is 13 degrees up there.
Below are some video sequences from today:
Those videos will hopefully explain, why I hardly covered 350 km in seven hours biking; it's the Spaniards fault.
They simply can't build anything straight, at least not the roads up here.
In the evening I note that the stupid GPS has again blitzed most of my tracklog, but I have added a few locations
manually so that it doesn't all end up as a straight line, which, as I said, are very rare on these roads.
The day ends at the town of Nava, the
place being kind of the Cider capital of Spain,
so I will try that stuff tonight.
I left at 9 am today, heading westwards. Until 1 pm it was always about 13 degrees, then I hit a warm front and
within 30 minutes the temperature went up to 30 degrees.
At about the same time I reach the town of
Villablino which is the furthest place I reached on my failed attempt on this journey in 2006. If you fancy
you can click here to go back in time to that voyage.
Austurias and Galicia
are just an endless maze of twisted roads. After 9 hours biking and only 400 km
covered I ended up in
Sarria.
The GPS has again erased most of the tracklog, sorry folks.
Correction: I have discovered that the GPS has an archive in which it copies old routes. I found everything back to Summer 2011. I have now fixed today's tracklog and will try to fill the two small Gaps once I have a rainy day.
I also managed to discover that the Spanish Repsol oil company is planning to launch its own Formula One team - because today I came along their secret driver training location. Click here for some convincing video evidence...
I went south into Portugal, the north-eastern corner formerly known as "Trás-os-Montes", literally meaning "behind the
mountains". The roads are not just as perfect as in Asturias, but I had a lot of fun and biked 520 km in 9 hours.
The GPS also had a lot of fun. Now that it knows that I have found the archive it has begun to erase sections of the track
without moving it into the archive. As you can see, the middle section of today's log is missing.
I end another day of perfect weather in
Ciudad Rodrigo in the
Salamanca province.
After such a long ride I opt for some luxury and book myself into the local Parador, which is located in the castle that Henry of Castile build in 1372. While dear Henry in those days undoubtedly entered the castle through the same gate as I do this evening, he certainly did not have to bother with dragging his baggage through a maze of medieval corridors to his room. And have you ever tried to mount a motorbike on its main stand on cobbled ground laid by craftsmen 650 years ago? Don't try that, these fellows had no idea what kind of wagon and horses we would use nowadays...
I am as impressed with that Parador as the
Duke of Wellington was with the Spanish
resistance when he stormed this place in 1812.
To my surprise this morning we have some sort of high fog covering what I expected to be a bright blue sky.
But when I leave the high plateau that I am on since crossing the Douro river and drive down into the
Extremadura lowlands the fog ends
and all is well. And my journey for today is a short one of just 300 km. I have decided that I will take a closer look at the city
of Ávila.
I propose that you read the Wikipedia link, as this town is a very unique place. You can expect some great photos
tomorrow.
After that rather disappointing Parador experience last night, today I check into a regular hotel in the city centre.
Yesterday I did a hard reset of the GPS and yes, the tracklog for once is completly there today.
Four hours after placing Tigger into the hotel garage it starts raining heavily. I hope I can keep up on that promise of great pictures for tomorrow...
The weather has changed and it is raining most of the time today. So I have a look into the cathedral, which is opposite of my hotel. That place is so big that it takes at least an hour to see. Later it brightens up for a moment and I take this picture of the entry to the walled town:
I have also fixed the gaps in the tracklog, so that you can now see the correct route I have driven.
When walking outside around the city wall this morning I made this picture:
The wall is 12 metres high and nearly a thousand years old. Luckily the Duke of Wellington did not come here, otherwise the
place would possibly look somewhat less perfect.
My weather-induced two days of viewing ancient monuments are over, the bad weather has moved eastwards - apparently to
Le Mans where the
Moto GP
was racing today in the rain. They showed the race on the big screen in the restaurant where I
had my lunch. It was coming down in buckets there...
After a late start I head further eastwards. Beyond Ávila the road climbs to over 1400 metres (4300 ft) and the temperature
drops to 4 degrees.
When I reach the Guadarrama Mountain Range the clouds
turn black - and it starts to snow! Who'd have thought that end of May in Spain means that I'd have to stock up on Antifreeze instead of
suntan lotion.
I do not need snow, so I turn westwards to Segovia. In spite of three layers of extra clothing I am frozen solid when I arrive there. For tomorrow I have uploaded a route through the valleys into my GPS.
The route through the "valleys" means that I am still at about 1000 metres above sea most of the time. But given that the air is five degrees warmer than yesterday anyway and that I am biking severel hundred metres lower means that today is much more bearable. I am heading northeast on not so winding roads today. Here is a video that shows you how that is:
In the afternoon I reach the lower countryside of Aragon, but a stormy wind of nearly 100 kph is blowing from the left - that spoils the fun a bit. I end the day at a nice hotel in Olite in Navarre which has a few hotels in spite of its small size due to the local Palacio Real.
The Pyrenees near the Bay of Biscay are not very high. Tigger and me never had to get much above 600 metres to cross them. Afterwards we traversed Landes and all of Gascony. The pine forests of Landes are not as dense as I remembered them - various big stoms in recent years have decimated them. I end the day after 425 enjoyable kilometres in Sourzac in the Dordogne.
The alarm on my mobile phone did not ring - because I forgot to switch it on. When I wake up it is already after 9 am, so I have a very
late start at 10.30 am. The hotelier is delighted that I pay cash and he conveniantly forgets to issue a receipt. Another 50 Euros lost for
Monsieur Hollande's grand schemes to save the republic.
Today the Limousin and
Centre departments are under my wheels. The weather
forecast has convinced me to circumnavigate the Auvergne,
because it will probably rain in the mountains of the Massif
Central.
Due to the late start I bike until after 6 pm. The hotel I choose has fairly basic rooms, but lots of recommendations for its restaurant.
One has to set preferences in life. So as they do not have Internet here in
Savigny-En-Septaine (the place looks a bit as if they only just
got electricity) there will be no update of my blog today.
Having had so much sleep the previous night is probably the reason why I wake up before 7 am today. As a result I am on the road by 8.30 am. And what a brilliant day for motorbiking it is. Ahead is Burgundy, and I thought I give you a video sequence for wine lovers instead of motorbikers. Here is the ride through Nuits-Saint-Georges, a town where you may be occupied by only three possible forms of employment; you either run a hotel, a restaurant or you produce wine, that's all there is.
And because I started so early I reach Switzerland at 3 pm and finish my second journey after 10 great hours of riding those 610 km.
Here is the altitude profile of this journey. You can clearly see the three points where the GPS went on the blink.
Below is the usual map with my GPS tracklog and some trip markers.