tourists. Cycling here has proven to be as difficult as described in
other trip blogs. So we've ridden some and then hopped on trains where
the riding was too difficult. The good news is that taking the bikes on
regional trains has been easy and free, except we were scolded once about
the length of the tandem. Also, for the most part drivers of both cars
and trucks have been quite courteous and allowed plenty of space for us.
The not-so-good part has been the difficulty of finding reasonable routes.
Although we had planned to cycle the French coast of Rousillon, a storm
in the Mediterranean was making the normally windy coast a real test of
our ability to balance heavily loaded bikes in gusts of up to 75 kph. The
French train agents claimed to know nothing about putting cycles on
Spanish trains, so we took a French train just across the border to
Portbou in Spain, went through a passport check, bought the next tickets,
and loaded the bikes on the train to Girona.
Girona was warm, at least for the first few days, and we stayed in a very
cycle-friendly lodging, the Hotel Historic, in the old center of town.
Seems that Team Discovery used to train in the area around Girona. We
enjoyed the beautiful city with narrow winding streets and the outside
cafes. After two days, we rode a Via Verde, aka "rails-to-trails" in the
U.S., down to San Feliu de Guixol, a small resort and fishing village.
The route was well-marked and graded through farmland and nice coastal
forest.
We had intended to ride south along the Costa Brava. Alas, there was the
wind and cold again, coupled with lack of reasonable cycling routes, as
we would have ended up on the National Highway system. So, the bikes went
on a bus back to Girona and then on a train to Tarragona.
We spent two days in Tarragona viewing the old Roman sights, and then
took a day ride to the Roman aqueduct and north to a beach. Again,
drivers were polite but there are no provisions for cycling, so the roads
and particularly the roundabouts can be hair-raising.
From Tarragona we rode south through an intensely industrial area,
camping one night in an over-priced campground near an adventure park,
noisy with trucks, and very cold. Then headed south again, making our way
through concrete jungles of high rise apartments that are essentially
ghost towns this time of year. Sometimes we could find small streets to
ride. However we also ended up riding N340. (Spain has A roads, or
Autopistas, which are mostly toll roads. So much of the traffic,
including commercial trucks, take the smaller N, or National, roads. They
have wide shoulders, but it was noisy, you're breathing a lot of exhaust,
and even though the traffic moved over for us, it was bit scary.)
We ended up that night short of our planned stop, but found a nice
campground right on the beach in Hospitalet les Enfants. The next day's
ride would have taken us back on the N340, past a nuclear power plant and
other large chemical plants. So, back on the train to Benicassim, another
tourist town on the beach with multiple highrise apartment buildings, and
most of the shops closed for the season. There were several campgrounds
open with many Dutch, German, and British caravanners, so there were some
grocery stores etc open. The caravanners were friendly, and Erich was
able to play bocce ball and otherwise hobnob with someone besides his
parents. We also took a nice day ride, described in a separate posting.
From Benicassim south there is a good cycle path as far as Castellon. We
then picked our way along the coast on side roads and through parking
lots of more concrete jungle, again falling short of our planned
destination. It was Thanksgiving Day, so we found a small hotel right on
the beach in Moncofa, had paella for dinner (no, it didn't come with
cranberry sauce and stuffing, but the owner gave us some tangerines from
his garden.)
There did not look to be a reasonable route for biking into Valencia, so
we found the train station in Moncofa which was over the highway, through
an orange grove, in a deserted building along the tracks, and the train
actually stopped for us. On to Valencia and beyond.
So that's our first two weeks in Spain, on and off our bicycles.
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