Cycling The Globe

A Cycle Touring Expedition Around The World

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Day 2164, Peñíscola – L’Ametlla de Mar: Into Catalonia

Posted by Thomas Andersen Posted on Jan - 06 - 2017

Distance: 87.1 km
Ride time: 4:57:49
Average: 17.6 km/h
Max speed: 43.2 km/h
Total: 55217 km

We started the day by cycling over to the fortress of Peñíscola for a bit of tourist sightseeing. Or well, what I really like about Spain is that the surroundings look like some place out of a movie, but it’s all real enough and people live and work here like they have done for centuries.

After a morning café con leche we were ready to hit the road, heading north as we will be doing until… well, Denmark. Today’s milestone was crossing into Catalonia, the Spanish province where Barcelona is located. It feels like we were in the mountains of Andalusia a few days ago even though it has actually been a couple of weeks. Progress is being made and next stop is France or… Andorra if our legs are up for the climbing.

No, not that Miami Beach 🙂

We are using Google Maps rather extensively, trying to find alternatives to the sometimes busy Ruta 340. Sometimes with better luck than others. At some point we ended up pushing the bikes up a hill on a tiny hiking path that somehow looked like a road on the map. Sometimes you hit the jackpot with Google Maps, other times you have to turn around.

In L’Ametlla de Mar lives Fernando, a radio friend I have been talking to for years but never met. Fernando had generously offered Manon and me to stay for the night, only mentioning two days in the month where he wouldn’t be home. Now we were arriving at exactly the wrong day – sorry for the bad timing Fernando.

Instead we headed down to the beach to another fancy camp site with plenty northern European families around. I have never really been to those kind of camp sites before (except for one holiday when I was 13 and went to Venice with my family). Now I feel I know them pretty well.

From our tent we could see the ocean and fell asleep to the sound of waves.

Categories: Spain
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One Response so far.

  1. Suzanne Jager says:

    What a shame you missed Fernando, still beautiful country.