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We sped away from Figueres this morning on easy roads (mainly C31) across flat countryside. Mostly farmland with wheat, corn and some olive trees. It was quite windy, which kept us cool.

We reached Palamos, about 80km away around midday.

I have never seen so many hotels in my life. The whole town consists of one high rise after another. It is ugly from the back. When you come round to the beach it is nice with white sands and a long promenade, palm trees; cafes and restaurants. There was also a cruise ship docked in the bay. We stopped for a coffee and then on our way again.

Between Palamos and Sant Feliu de Guixols it is continuous tourist entertainment area – we passed a fun fair, endless apartments; sex shops, other shops of all types, camp grounds etc etc.

From Sant Feliu de Guixols we found ourselves on a windy coastal road without much traffic or any buildings. This was a scenic route around the coast. At this point the coast falls away into cliffs down to the sea without beaches. The next 20km took us just as long as the first part of our ride, as it was a up and down climb around the coast. It was extremely pretty but also hard work.

As you can imagine we were pretty tired out by the time we reached Tossa de Mar – our ride was altogether 119km.

We were very pleasantly surprised by the town which, despite its name, is one of the most perfect seaside holiday towns I can imagine. If any of you are wanting to holiday on this coast; come here. See the pictures at http://www.tossademar.cat. We could easily spend more time here; but I am afraid we will be off in the morning again as Barcelona calls.

We have very basic accommodation here (a pension), in the old city. The city has medieval walls dating from the 14th century – they look like a castle next to the beach. The old city has wonderful shops to explore and many restaurants vying for your custom. We had a lovely meal, including Paella, in the old city – very reasonable and friendly service too.

So far we are finding Spain cheaper than France and Germany (which were already cheaper than NZ). The accommodation seems to be cheaper by around a third.

Not a nice ride today. Most of the ride was in heavy traffic.. Negotiating the motorway intersections was painful. Altogether we did 95km.

The start of the ride along the coast to Lloret de Mar was scenic. The traffic picked up from there. We left the coast and headed inland first over some hills. Most of the ride was along the C35.

When we arrived in Granollers we found the tourist office shut and the town deserted. It was around 2.30pm. Individuals told us it would open at 5pm, so we hung around town. Just after 4pm we noticed it was open. Once we had sorted out our accommodation, most of the shops in town were opening and there were more people around.

Our accommodation is near a train station in a seedy part of town. It is cramped but cheap. We are staying two nights so that we can spend a day in Barcelona, traveling in by train.

We went back into town in the evening to get something to eat and found the place packed- walking in crowds at 8pm ( it is Saturday night).

Our first non-cycling day. Got up early and took the train into the big city – a journey of about 40min.

Barcelona is empty first thing on a Sunday morning – however this soon picked up and we were in crowds again at lunchtime. Many tourists around – you hear a lot of different languages being spoken and many pulling their luggage behind them. We were very careful with our valuables; as we had been warned about crime by several people. There was a noticeable police presence around the tourist spots.

We had our fill of beautiful architecture walking around – I like the wide tree lined avenues with pretty balconied apartments on either side. The Gaudi buildings are truly unique and all surrounded by tourists..

We traversed the city, including the huge waterfront with many yachts; craft stalls, statues and cable car. We stopped several times for snacks or just to sit and rest in one of the parks. Kris and I both found walking around the whole day very tiring and so headed back to our pension for a siesta in the late afternoon.

Today we exhausted ourselves with a 115km ride – about 30km longer than planned due to having to find accommodation. However we have truly put the impact of Barcelona traffic behind us. Luckily the weather was overcast the whole day.

The first part of our ride had heavy traffic – through suburb type towns; hilly; to Sentmenant where we had a coffee.

The next part of the ride was the best, through hilly wooded areas with less traffic to Terrassa, a pretty city. Then onto Manressa, passing through several tunnels. I thought we may find accommodation here, but it was an awful place – very busy, ugly apartments, smelly, couldn’t find the tourist info. So we decided we would press on about 10km to a smaller town called Rajadell. According to the map there is a tourist info office here too – so we felt there would be accommodation.

The road to the town was busy, with lots of roadworks. When we got there we found out that the tourist info is closed on Mondays and the hotel advertised is also evidently not in existence anymore. So instead of going backwards we went onto Calaf – first on the busy road, however we were directed onto a side road by some officials (part of the building works?) – this road was much better – basically a service road to the highway.

We got to Calif at around 6pm (having started at about 8.30am) and quickly found a hotel – lovely place with a large room and bathroom with a bath. Totally exhausted! Jenny refused to leave and Kris had to go and fetch some food.

Highlights – views of the mountains sticking up out of the ground with long columns at the top like pre-historic teeth.

We are exhausted again after doing 94km against the wind.

The first part of our ride (to Cervera) was lovely – along rural roads with very little traffic; past lots of wind turbines (ultimately not a good sign) and small settlements with stone houses. Mostly wheat fields on either side – so the landscape is yellow, edged by scraggly green trees. It was already windy at this point, but broken up by the hilliness of the landscape.

After Tarrega we rode along a huge plain for the rest of the journey – around -60km. This would have been an easy flat ride if not for the constant strong headwind – which really made it hard. Especially for Kris, as I was in his slipstream all the way.

Finally we reached Lleida, our planned destination, a big and attractive city. with a castle on the hill, where we have found a comfortable hotel.

Today was a recovery day with an easy 64km ride and no wind.

We traveled across the plain to Monzon. There were amazing downhill runs into Almacelles and Monzon, where you saw the whole plain laid out before you. We also caught sight of snow covered Pyranees in the distance. It is very dry country but the farmland is irrigated with canals.

We arrived in Monzon around 12.30pm and found we had to go up a steep hill to the Castle for tourist info. Once we had secured a map and accommodation, we went through the castle which was extremely interesting – parts of it date to the 9-10th centuries and it was a Knights Templar stronghold in the 12-14th centuries. It has been restored but still has a really ancient feel to it, with rough cobble stone streets. We could go inside the Templar meeting hall and church which are without any ornamentation and also the living quarters and stables. There are awesome views of the surrounding countryside and Monzon town – you can see the site was chosen with defense in mind..

Our accommodation is in a nearby small town called Castejun del Puente – a very nice big room with a balcony, friendly staff and bar and restaurant below. We had a good rest and some food before heading out to see the town’s church in the evening. We enjoyed the views from the church, which is on a hill above the town. An old man came out of a nearby house with a huge key to open the church for us. It had some gory effigies in it but was obviously a beloved place of worship.

Highlights

• Monzon castle
• The first time we have seen a stork, nesting on top of the church in Castejun del Puente – a huge next on top of the church steeple with the stork sitting beside it staring down at us!

We had a beautiful ride this morning from Castejun del Puente to Huesca, the largest city in the Huesca province.The roads were good (not much traffic) and the landscape is changed again. We passed some large vineyards early in the morning.The countryside is more undulating, with rocky outcrops. Still very dry, however there are water canals for irrigation. We rode through many wheat fields – very yellow and looking ready to harvest. The wind makes a shushing sound when it blows through them.

In Huesca; Jenny visited the glorious Cathedral while Kris drank coffee in the square. This is perhaps the most beautiful cathedral I have seen on this trip. It dates from the 12th to 16th centuries. Of particular note was the main alter piece carved in alabaster between 1520 and 1533.

Our afternoon ride of around 30km was also scenic but very hot. We rode out to the town of Loarre to see the castle there. The tourist info guy told us there was plenty of accommodation and the beautiful castle just 4km above the town. We didn’t realise how hard the climb up the hill would be in the heat. Half-way up we passed a camping ground so went to inquire about bungalows. We ended up taking a bungalow and continuing the journey without the bikes.

The castle is a large impregnable structure sitting on top of a rocky outcrop overlooking the plain below. There are two churches in it, a monastery, couple of towers you can go into – really a lot to explore and glorious views all around.  You can see the castle here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loarre_Castle.

Altogether we did around 94km today.

Highlights

• A monastery on a hill
• The mountains viewed from the road coming into Huesca – many vertical rock formations sticking out of the plain.
• Huesca cathedral
• Loarre castle

We had a gorgeous ride today with stunning scenery.

We started out with a long downhill run from the Loarre Castle mountain to the next town, Ayerbe. We stopped for breakfast here at a local bakery – coffee and pastries.

We passed some impressive rock formations on the mountain near Riglos – huge phallic granite protuberances from the mountains. From here we followed a river gorge to a dam (Embalsa de la Perla) – very scenic cycling. At the dam we met a friendly Dutch couple who are cycle touring and camping in France and Spain. We had an interesting chat over coffee at the small settlement on the dam. We got some useful information and have again changed our route plan back into France.

From here the route took us through mountainous terrain, with an invigorating downhill run into a  wide river valley – the view stretching out all greens and yellows and browns and with snow capped Pyrenees on the horizon.

We eventually reached another large dam/lake (Embalsa de Yesa) and rode alongside it for an hour. The lake was a vivid turquoise and was surrounded by loose shale formations.

It was very hot after 2pm and I was relieved when we reached the town of Yesa and found a hostel in the main street at around 3pm. We had done around 100km on hilly roads.

The heat has only started to abate at around 9pm – the best cycling conditions here are definitely in the early mornings.

Observations:

• We have been on one of the Compostella de Santiago routes for the last two days. Today we met some ‘pilgrims’ for the first time – three Dutch cyclists who have cycled from Holland. They seemed more interested in the statistics of their physical performance than a spiritual journey. We haven’t seen anyone walking the route and I can’t imagine how people would manage it here as the towns are far apart with mountainous roads between them.