Day 67 - Blanes to Matarò - Gorging in France ...Then Basquing in the Pyrenees - 2023

June 23, 2023

Day 67 - Blanes to Matarò

End of the Line

Hard to believe that the cycle part of this tour is coming to an end today. We’ve seen so much varied and astonishing terrain over the last 10 weeks that it’s hard to put it all in perspective - and that’s a solid reason for keeping up with a daily(ish) journal. It will be a few weeks or months from now after we’ve rehashed and reviewed the trip that it will all gel, but right now our focus is on the next few hours to get to Mataró.

And why Mataró?

Pretty pedestrian reasons really. First and most important, it’s on the commuter rail line into Barcelona, and we really don’t want to ride into the big city as we can see the traffic and general road conditions for cycling deteriorating already. Second, we found a ‘Brico’ store here (equivalent to a Home Depot / Lowe’s) where we can get the ‘bike packing’ stuff we need (foam pipe insulation, zip ties, good duct tape etc) and third …. There are 2 Monsieur Michelin recommended restaurants here, one that’s a rare beast - a Bib Gourmand (a purgatory rating in between a general recommendation and a star) with a single Eruo price category (most Michelin places have a 2 - 3 Euro icon for their price range , and if there are stars attached more likely 4- 5 Euro’s. We don’t go there)!!

So, Mataró it is today.

The cycling was as expected, flat and pretty boring, but at least we were along the almost continuous beach that stretches between Blanes and Mataró for the first half of the ride. For the second half, the N-11 highway comes right down to the beach level and we were forced onto riding this. The traffic was moderate, and there’s a good shoulder so it was ok. We’ve ridden far worse roads elsewhere (you listening Manitoba!) but this was easily the worst riding of the entire trip. Not bad if this 20 km’s was the worst of the trip, it puts the rest of the 2,780 km’s in context - they were fabulous.

We pulled into Mataró in the early afternoon and decided to do the Brico run today rather than tomorrow. The store was a few km’s south on the other side of the hotel, so we dropped our bags at the hotel and did the store run unloaded. I have to be honest and admit that one of the main drivers to do this today was that we needed the additional 6 km’s to get our total trip distance over 2,800 km’s. Vanity has no limits.

So that was the day and the evening was a sensational dinner at Doscuiners (Two Chefs in Catalan), the Michelin Unicorn.

Once again we had their menu Degustació (six courses - and it was about half the price of similar menu’s we’ve had at other places and as good or better). The atmosphere and vibe of the place was similar to SiNoFos in Girona, plain decor, industrial chic, and the small staff was wonderful; knowledgeable and passionate about the food and wine, and that came through on the plate as well. Aunt Betty’s instagram feed follows, and as I mentioned earlier, it was a wonderful way to end the cycle portion of the trip.

We fly home from Barcelona one week from today. Our son and partner are meeting us there for a few days and there will be more gorging, We also have to pack up the bikes but we’ve got 95% of that sorted already with the supplies we picked up today and the knowledge that we can buy bike boxes at the post office.

We’ll follow up with a few more posts, but not daily, as this tour isn’t over until the bikes are back in the garage in Canmore. Hopefully that is on the 28th June.

It will take us a few days to digest and come up with our now standard ‘top days’ list … we’ve already been debating this and it’s going to be really tough as so many of our days have been outstanding.

Thanks for following along, and check back in for our final thoughts -and some more gorging photos from Barcelona if you’re into that … there are already some plans in place … our son is a more ardent foodie than we are.

Final bike day …. Pretty pedestrian. The elevation profile says it all!

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SOTD - Special Edition, Fat Freddy’s Drop

This one’s really for the entire trip. We started this off with a K-Tel’s Greatest Hits theme, collecting great rides that other CB’rs have done and mashing them together into a single tour / album. It’s been far better than we expected, so not only has this been a Greatest Hits album, it deserves a Special Edition label as well.

This is also one of my (current) fav songs too, so I had to find a way of sneaking it in here, and the video is cool too (muppet-esque, and who doesn’t like the Muppets?)

Our final ‘start of the day’ pic. Setting off from Blanes under clear blue skies again.

Very few pic’s today. They would all look pretty much like this. This is the beach at Blanes and for the next 40 km’s the only thing that changed were the number of people on the beach.

We did have a couple of inland detours where rivers ran into the ocean. On one of these Kirsten caught these last poppies still hanging on. It’s pretty amazing that we’ve had continuous poppies in bloom for the entire 10 weeks

Also on one of the inland detours we saw where our food comes from … in particular salads

All types of lettuce on one side of the road and these tomatoes on the other side

back to the beach. Sometimes the road /path was paved …

And every once in a while there were boats out in the sun instead of people

And then the end of the cycling in Matarò. Nice enough place, but a little anticlimactic. We are booked into a hotel at the marina so we’ve got a nice view of the boats and the sea beyond. Not too hard to take.

A Cava toast to the end of the cycling on this fantastic tour. A befitting ending with a six course dinner at Dos Cuiners followed

Tomato and watermelon gazpacho with smoked eel

An amazing prawn carpaccio (it was so thinly sliced it was almost transparent) with sea asparagus (Salicornia), citrus aioli and caramelized pine nuts

63° poached egg with Spanish equivalent of guanciale on a nest of mashed potatoes. The ‘comfort food’ part of the meal

Slow cooked milk fed lamb with a veggie Demi glacé and sweet potato purée

Lovely wine from Rebeiro region of Spain. Mostly Treixadura (which we’re not familiar with) with a little Alberino. Great match with the meal and it was recommended by the staff. Listen to the locals!

Flaky pastry (like phyllo) filled with a warm liquid vanilla cream. Eat in one bite … like a sweet xioa long bao … it may not look like much but it was sensational

And that’s a wrap for the cycling part of this trip. 49 days cycling, 2,804 km’s and 40,776 m of climbing!! No bad days and most were extraordinary!

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 2,804 km (1,741 miles)

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Rose TobiasI'm sad to see the last of the blog entries, and you've got me thinking that its time to plan a Bruce and Rose adventure!
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1 year ago

Lyle McLeodTo Rose TobiasHi Rose,
You and Bruce should certainly plan and adventure!

Don’t be sad yet, we’ll have a couple of more posts. We’re in Barcelona for the next few days and Callum arrived this afternoon. There will be more foodie pic’s and stories!
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1 year ago