Day 45 - Murillo del Gàllego to Jaca - Gorging in France ...Then Basquing in the Pyrenees - 2023

June 1, 2023

Day 45 - Murillo del Gàllego to Jaca

Damp Descent

A short post for a short day.

Editorial addendum - K, who dutifully proofreads and edits the (multitude of) spelling mistakes and crappy grammar, has pointed out that this post is just as long as all the other ones. That’s true, and it destroys my witty opening line, but I’m keeping it anyway.

The weather forecast called for rain for most of the day, and it proved to be half correct. It wasn’t raining when we left Murillo and since we had a short day with a long but moderate grade climb to get to Jaca, we were hopeful that we could make it there before the rain came.

Although it wasn’t raining in Murillo, the cloud ceiling was very low, giving the surrounding mountains and cliffs, in particular the Mallos de Riglos, a very new and haunting look. We had a 5 km slight downhill to start the day to the very impressive bridge and dam on the Asabón river. Since we had so much fun yesterday on our muddy off-road riding, we decided to take the gravel rail trail on the south side of the reservoir upstream of the dam. The riding was pretty good and once we reached the end of the reservoir we rejoined the A1205, the road we would be on for the rest of the way to Jaca.

We were a bit concerned about riding this as we had three large tracks pass us on this road just after we left Murillo. These concerns were completely misplaced though when we rejoined the road, it was reduced to more or less a single lane with no road markings, and once again we counted the number of vehicles we saw for the rest of the day on our fingers.

We had about 500 m of elevation to gain over the next 30 km’s, and the road climbed at a consistent gentle grade the entire time.

There’s very few pictures for the day, as it was overcast and continually threatening to rain, however, the countryside continued to be quite beautiful as it transitioned to much more alpine terrain.

We topped out at Peurto de Oroel, 1080 m, after a few hours of climbing, and within a minute of getting the ‘Col photo’, the rain started, and it was a pretty hard rain. At least we were going downhill from here for the next 10 km’s into Jaca and we got there pretty quickly.

It’s becoming a bit of a thing for us to walk into the hotels we’re staying at dripping wet, but invariably we’re greeted with a warm and understanding welcome. That was the case today.

We were in Jaca fairly early, and our plan for the afternoon was to head to the post office and send Agnes and her Feathered Friend home. Yes, we decided that continuing to lug our camping stuff around with us, in particular for the next two weeks through the Pyrenees, was just not in the cards. The medium term weather forecast didn’t give us any comfort that we would be camping on a consistent basis, and we have several hotels / apartments already pre booked in key places for the remainder of the trip.

So after getting cleaned and warmed up, we set off to the post office with all the stuff we were going to mail home. What happened next can only happen to us, or Clark Griswold. When we arrived at the only Post office in Jaca, it turns out that today, June 1st, is the day that they were moving locations, and were closed. The sign on the door wasn’t clear as to where the new location was, and it took a bit of wandering around, asking locals, and finally following a women who looked like she knew where the new place was, to find it. Luckily there were some staff there who said that they would be up and running for regular business tomorrow morning starting at 8:30. So we now know what we’re doing then!

Our post office wandering did give an opportunity to have a looks around Jaca, and we liked what we saw. This is a mountain holiday town and there are lots of mtb, hiking and climbing stores, and a very attractive pedestrian old town. When we were having our post ride bevy and a few Pintxos, Kirsten noticed we were across a square from the main Cathedral. She even suggested that we go have a look at it.

What a stumble upon. This was one of the most beautiful and intriguing church / cathedrals that we’ve ever been inside. I only had my iPhone with me, but the the few pics I’ve captured give a pretty good flavour of what we saw.

Dinner was a very good, very local feast at Restaurante Biarritz. This place looks like it’s been around for quite a while, and it is popular with tourists and locals alike. Lots of food, all fresh and very well prepared, simply, carrots were still carrots, not a mousse!

Tomorrow we venture into the Pyrenees for real and the weather is looking better … no rain until the evening. Fingers crossed :)

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SOTD - The Weight, The Band’s classic from The Last Waltz , helped out by Mavis Staples and her family. ‘Take a load off Fanny”

Seems fitting for the weight that we are now shedding. Sorry Agnes.