Roses

December 7, 2018

We’re in Roses, a coastal resort on the Costa Brava, for the next two nights. It’s a nice place, but the WiFi service stinks. Rather than get behind again, we’ll just fit in a terse post and call it good.

The ride today was a bit on the short side, but hillier than we’ve seen for awhile. After about twelve flattish miles on the Emporda Plain, we reach the edge of hilly, rugged Cap Creus and start climbing into the wildly beautiful Serra de Rodes. The five mile, 1,500’ climb to the summit isn’t bad, but it’s the longest sustained climb we’ve done in over a week. It exposes how badly my gears need work, and I labor up slowly, with only a few climbing gears functional - fortunately, they include the lowest one, so there’s never a question of being able to make the climb; it’s just slow.

The skies are overcast this morning, and it’s cool but windless. They will clear later in the day, but at the top it’s still overcast and quite chilly. We spend a fair amount of time at the summit walking around the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, and taking in the fantastic views of the cape and coastline. It is all visually stunning, but by the time we finish lunch the cold starts getting to us and we’re more than ready to drop off the mountain again.

The back half of the trip is really beautiful. The sun breaks out halfway down from the crest as we drop through a crazily tangled road to El Port de la Silva, a gleaming white coastal town that looks like it could be set in Greece. The road is steep and precipitous enough, with sharp bends edged by sheer drop offs, that we take the descent slowly - alternately getting a break when we break out into the sun and then being thrust back into the cold shadows again.

The final ten miles cross the neck of the cape, gently rising for five miles through beautiful pine forest and then dropping on a glorious, fast descent to Roses. I don’t take any photos of this wonderful descent, because it’s getting late in the day (once again, we arrive at 4:30, just a bit before sundown, and glad to get off of the darkening road). It’s OK though, because we plan on a repeat of these miles tomorrow on a ride to famously scenic Cadaques on the southern tip of the coast.

Overcast this morning, but there’s hope for improvement.

Two things to note about these bikers racing away from us. One, it’s so quiet that I can clearly hear them chattering and whooping from far away. Two, I think the whoops we’re when they raced through a cloud of birds that had been squatting on the road. There may have been a thousand of them, and they circled back across the road in a giant cloud a few times before finally moving on.

Hmm - I think there must be a school nearby, he decides after donning his Sherlock cap.

Rachael checks over her shoulder as she leads the peloton to the summit of Cap Creus.

Sant Pere de Rodes monastery sits in an amazing position at the crown of the cape. I’ve seen this described as the most spectacularly sited monastery in the world. I don’t know about that, but it’s spectacular enough for us.

The crazy descent to El Port de la Selva

There were about ten of these ladies lining the road here, half on each side. It seemed prudent to stop and wait while the right hand contingent slowly ambled one at a time over to join their friends on the left.

Whitewash and bougainvillea- El Port de la Selva looks like it could be set in Greece.

I’m not throwing out a challenge to anyone, but I’ll just point out that there are four different lichens on this wall, and one very strange mystery plant.

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Ride stats today: 35 miles, 3,000’

Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 3,253 miles (5,235 km)

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