October 2, 2018 to October 3, 2018
Half cycle, half tourist
This journal entry covers both of our “Barcelona tourist” days, even though they were quite different from one another.
Yesterday we decided to ride our bikes into the city from Campground 3 Estrellas. This took us back past the airport, through Prat de Llobregat and L’Hospitalitat de Llobregat. Some of the route was pretty good, but a few sections were scary, difficult, or both. People here do drive hurriedly, but they notice bicyclists and don’t seem annoyed by our very existence the way American drivers tend to be. It would have been more challenging fully loaded, that’s for sure.
I recommend touring Barcelona on a bicycle. There is an abundance of bike lanes, or more specifically what we in the US call “two-way cycle tracks.” Sometimes they are on the right or left, sometimes in the center. Sometimes on the street, sometimes on the sidewalk. It’s a hodgepodge but you start getting used to it after a while. The locals are out there too, either on city bikeshares or on their own bikes. I saw very few tourists on bikes.
Some tourist areas are flooded with distracted pedestrians, as one would expect, and are less enjoyable to walk around with a bike in tow. Other places, like the waterfront, have plenty of space for cyclists. Of course the real beauty of riding is traveling from place to place without having to rely on public transportation or taxis.
Now that I’ve said that, I have to share a story. We decided to take the subway back as far as the airport. We knew that we had to wait until the rush hour was over at 8:30pm. Our flight arrived at Terminal 2, and we knew our way back to the campground from there. However, we determined that continuing to the end of the line at Terminal 1 would be closer and easier. I looked up the directions on our navigation app, and it showed a path, starting from an airport parking lot, through a major highway. That meant either a bridge or an underpass. We went to exactly where it was supposed to be, but no luck. After wandering around a bit more, I lost faith in the app and we started to look for an alternative. Sunyoung had her own idea, which I was very skeptical about, as it involved going the wrong way down a one-way road.
In one sense, it worked. We were stopped by security, and it gave Sunyoung the opportunity to ask them about this mysterious trail under the highway. One of them actually knew about it. So we returned to the parking lot, confident that we would find it this time. We still came up empty. Exasperated, we rode over to the parking lot kiosk, where the attendant was able to give us exact directions in Spanish. We should have gone there in the first place! Quickly, a mirage appeared out of nowhere: the underpass that had eluded us for so long. From there, it really was a short ride to the campground. We were exhausted from this adventure, and thankfully sleep came much easier to me.
Today we took the bus into the city, and walked around places that would have required locking our bikes up to explore. I’m never fully at ease when the bikes are out of our sight in a big city. A stolen bike would likely end the tour in short order. I don’t even want to think about it.
Here’s what I’d rather think about: tomorrow we start the tour in earnest, and we will not spend any time riding in circles in airport parking lots!
Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 63 km (39 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 3 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |