August 21, 2023
The Spain Game
El plan for an autumn hop around Iberia
In a traditional Spanish playground game, children hop between two spaces called Mar y Tierra – Sea and Land. It's a little like the Red Light, Green Light game that I played as a kid – a leader calls out mar or tierra and the kids jump - either over the line or in place - to the called side. You can substitute any logical pair of words – jamon y queso, flamenco y sardaña, cerveza y vino. Barry and I are going for all of it this fall.
Lately I've been playing with a map of Spain, jumping between sea and land and dazzled by the possibilities. Places by the sea lead our long list of ambitions – Barcelona, San Sebastian, Valencia, Mallorca, Malaga. We'll get further into La Tierra in Andalucia, Madrid, and the Occitanie region of southern France, and plan to string it all together over seven weeks with hops on trains, buses and ferries. Here’s the big picture…
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Cycle Blaze has changed the planning game since we discovered it on our first European cycle tour last year. I can just pop a city into the search bar to find all these tantalizing experiences, photos and route ideas that you all have taken the time to write about. I’ve made a start at mining some of the many wonderful CB journals around Iberia and figuring out possible routes.
Following are more details. Any suggestions are appreciated –we're still messing with the plan.
Central Europe: a pre-tour tour
Before we get to Spain, we're signed up for a two-week tour of Central Europe the second half of September with the Rick Steves outfit. There should be time for a ride in each of five different countries from Prague, Chechia to Bled, Slovenia to keep the legs in some kind of shape.
Occitanie, France
Last year on our first bike trip through France we passed by the medieval city of Carcassonne on the train to Arles but didn't stop for a visit. It’s so close to Spain and the Mediterranean coast that we can’t pass it up this time. Starting from Montpellier, we’ll take a leisurely four days to ride to Carcassonne, hoping for a good bowl of Bouillabaisse somewhere along the way. A flamingo sighting by the Mediterranean would be delightful too. We'll take a couple extra days in Carcassonne to see the medieval fortress and ride around the area. Daily mileage will be modest on this stretch as we get back up to speed riding with the panniers on our Bike Fridays.
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Pays Basque y Pais Vasco – The Basque Country
From Carcassonne we'll hop a train to Bayonne for a ride from French Pays Basque to Spanish Pais Vasco. I've had a fascination with the Basque Country since my first reading of Ernest Hemingway´s The Sun Also Rises when Jake Barnes, the protagonist, happened to meet some bike racers in San Sebastian. We'll ride through Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Lekeitio and other towns on the Atlantic coast. Layovers in San Sebastian and Bilboa will give us some time to soak in the scene and gorge ourselves on food that's said to be the best in Spain.
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La Costa Mediterránea
In mid-October we’ll take another train from Bilbao to Barcelona for three days of riding, dancing the sardaña and exploring the culture and cuisine of Catalonia. I don't have any particular plan yet about where we want to ride around Barcelona - any favorite routes out there?
From Barcelona, an overnight ferry will take us to Mallorca for a week or so of cycling nirvana. I have a notion to take the bus from Palma out to Pollença, ride out to Cap de Formentor at the northern tip and work our way back to Palma through the Tramuntana mountains and coastline.
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Back in Palma, we’ll ferry back to the mainland in Valencia for a few days where we hope to catch up with Scott and Rachel Anderson. We would love to meet up with more Cycle Blaze folk! If you might be traveling our way at any point on this zigzag tour, feel free to message me either here or jbranham99[at]gmail.
Andalucia
As I followed Susan Carpenter's captivating tour through Andalucia this spring, this region went to the top of the list for where to spend our time. From late October into mid-November we'll ride a 330 mile arc through the beautiful tierra española in search of flamenco dancing, gazpacho, Moorish palaces, and blissful passages like the Via Verde de la Sierra. We'll take some extra time in Granada, Malaga, Ronda, Sevilla and Cordoba to see the sights. One more train hop from Cordoba will take us to Madrid for a few days before we fly home.
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Here's a more detailed map of our plan. Thanks to Kelly Iniguez for the clue about creating this. It's a compilation of "event" maps for each region, built on the RidewithGPS Calendar page.
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Training started in earnest last week after an upgrade to switch out the straight handle bar on my Bike Friday for a drop bar. While I'm not moving much faster, the change in seat position is definitely more comfortable on longer rides. Barry is happy with the H-bar on his BF. We'll cover a lot of territory over seven weeks but most ride days will be under 40 miles to keep the Spain game fun.
Aside from making reservations, Spanish lessons on Babbel are the other big focus for the next six weeks. Bear with me as I practice.
¡Estamos muy emocionados!
(We´re so excited!)
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