To Tarazona: Entering Aragon

September 19, 2017

We were slow getting untracked this morning - we stayed around the hotel to enjoy a good smorgesboard breakfast, which didn't begin service until 8:30; and then we loafed around a bit, not leaving the room until almost 10:30. Once we finally hit the road, we didn't get far before stopping again. After crossing the Duero just below the city center, we came to the Monastery of San Juan de Duero, the other important site of Soria.

The monastery is fascinating to explore. It's origin is as an early Romanesque church, built in the 1100's. Two centuries later the cloister was added, and reflects the multicultural character of the time, with Christian, Arab, Mudejar and Jewish elements. All that remains now are the church and the exposed columns and arches of the cloister. We've never seen anything at all like it.

Leaving Soria, over the old stone bridge crossing the Duero

East of Soria we find very different country than we've been riding through before now - open, undulating farmland, with drying fields of sunflowers alternating with swatches of plowed brick-red soil. The next twenty miles are a very pleasant ride, rolling across a series of small ridges that gently rise and fall with no real change in elevation. It's very peaceful and traffic free - an idyllic ride - until we come to the busy national highway. We endure this for eight safe but less pleasant miles, and then leave it for quiet roads that will carry us the rest of the way to Tarazona.

We stop for lunch in the small village of Agreda, there's not much here, but finding our way to the the center confounds us a bit. We miss our turnoff, leaving the highway a few yards early on a service road that dead-ends on us. Rather than backtracking we decide to push up a short embankment to a trail that leads us to the actual road. It's a steep scramble up the embankment, and requires both of us on each bike - one steering, the other pushing from behind. I regret not having a third person present to take a photo of us hard at work.

There's not much in Agreda, but we do find a bar with a nice assortment on display. We enjoy tortilla, sandwiches and a small beer. While we eat, the bar starts filling up for the afternoon as the drinkers show up one by one, and then a piece of felt and a deck of cards appears. The afternoon's entertainment is on.

For several miles, sunflowers were the predominant crop

Past it's prime - a sunflower I can relate to

Climbing up one of a series of low rollers

From Agreda, it's a short 15 miles to the end of the ride. It starts with our big climb for the day - about six hundred feet, at maybe a three percent grade. After topping out, we race the last eight miles to Tarazona, dropping nearly two thousand feet through dramatic terrain. The last several miles skirt Montayo Natural Park, whose rugged, exposed red cliffs remind us a bit of southern Utah.

We arrive in Tarazona around six. We're staying in the old quarter, characterized by narrow, curved, rough-paved streets lined by tall, antient structures. About fifty yards from our hotel I embarrass myself - swerving to avoid a slowly oncoming car, I surprise myself and everyone else by toppling over after clipping a slight curb in the street I hadn't noticed. Embarrassing, but no damage to myself or the bike - I'd been traveling so slowly that I was almost able to catch myself, and landed cleanly.

It's late enough that everything is in the shadows, so we limit our sightseeing to an orientation and a walk up to the mirador overlooking the town. We'll save most of our exploration for the morning.

Total elevation gain: today, 2'800'; for the tour, 19,500'

This was a surprising formation, outside of Alveda. It looks like it could be an outcrop of the Pyrenees, but they're still about a hundred miles off.

Descending to the outskirts of Moncayo Natural Park, and then on down to Tarazona. Here too is Rachael's video of the descent.

The lobby of our hotel, Tarazona. Feels like we've stepped into a modern art work.

Rachael models the new bike jersey she got in Vitoria-Gasteiz, as compensation for being stuck with a suboptimal derailleur.

The cathedral and the old bull ring, from the mirador in the old city

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Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 298 miles (480 km)

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