In Céret: the Llauro loop

October 24, 2024

There’s rain on the horizon again, but today and tomorrow both look fine. We’re going out for lunch today so we each come up for routes for ourselves that are short enough to fit into the afternoon. I leave first and return first, so let’s start with me today.

I’ve come up a moderately challenging ride, somewhat longer and hillier than I’ve done lately, still testing out the situation with my knee. The first fifteen miles are easy and low profile as I head southeast along the Tech.

Somehow these two mountains that rise behind Céret keep catching my attention.

It doesn’t look like those lime-green shutters have been opened for a while.

After Forques I turn northwest and start climbing the ridge that divides the Tech and Tet valleys. A steady four mile ascent brings me to Llauro, a village that straddles the crest of the ridge and gives a wide, sweeping view of the Roussillon plain to the east from a panorama point behind its ancient church. It’s not a particularly difficult climb, maintaining a steady grade of around 4% the whole way, but it’s encouraging that it doesn’t bother my knee at all.

Looking down on Llauro from the high point of the day.

I climbed up to Llauro mainly for the view from the balcony behind the church. Straight out, far off in the center of the frame, is Perpignan.

From Llauro it’s a fast five mile drop back to the Tech Valley at Saint-Jean-Pla-de-Corts. I don’t stop at all along the way, starting to be concerned about getting back before dark. Vives looks like it could be an interesting village to explore but I just stick to the road when I come to it, keep my momentum, and blow right through.

When I come to Saint-Jean though I stop for a good look, first intrigued by the bells atop the church tucked away in the center of the village and then by its tiny lanes you access through mousehole-sized arched entrances trying to get to it. It’s a small but charming little place, well worth the short detour.

Saint-Jean-Pla-de-Corts is another Catalan village.

I’m doing fine for time when I leave Saint-Jean at around 5:45, with just under five miles left to go the last I checked. Days are getting short enough that I want to be back before 6:30, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m about a quarter mile out of the village though when I recheck the distance and see that now I’ve still got over nine miles to go. I can’t figure out how I picked up four miles but later I’ll study my track and see that I took the wrong exit from the village and the Garmin apparently rerouted me inefficienty. I study the route but can’t figure out what’s going on so I just follow it for a ways and confirm that the distance to destination is dropping; but soon I come to a traffic circle and see that I’m biking back toward the coast, away from Céret.

It’s getting late enough in the day that I can’t afford any mistakes, so I abandon the route I’m following and open up the one we rode yesterday in coming here. And this is much better, distance-wise - it’s only 4.5 miles back to town now so I’m fine on time again. Unfortunately though it puts me back on that crappy, busy stretch of D900 that we rode yesterday, after I took such pains to avoid it with the route I drew for today. I didn’t like it yesterday, and I really don’t like it this evening when the traffic is even worse and the light is starting to dim.

I survive that though, and the last three miles to town are very nice - especially at the end when I stick with the bike route signs into town instead of my marked route. They take me across what must be a fairly new pedestrian bridge across the river, one so new my Garmin doesn’t show it as a route at all. It’s much quieter, safer, and more enjoyable than the way we entered town yesterday.

Given how late in the day it is I’m somewhat surprised to find that Rachael isn’t home when I arrive. When I call her I find that she’s less than five minutes away so I just wait in our alley for her to return with our only key and let me in.

Nice light across the vineyards at the end of the day.

The view from the new pedestrian bridge across the Tech. The farthest bridge is the ancient Pont du Diable (the Devil’s Bridge), built in the mid-1300’s. It looks pretty unassuming now, but when it was built it was the briefly the longest single arch bridge in the world.

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Steve Miller/GrampiesIt looks like you must have biked right past the hotel we stayed in jut at the outskirts of Maureillas las Illas. Are you going over the pass by bike, or taking a train?
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1 month ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesTrain, for sure. Someone needs to try this just to validate it works. With all our experience with trains now, what could possibly go wrong?
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1 month ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonOoh, now you nay have jinxed it. We are eagerly awaiting the report on the train journey.
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1 month ago

Rachael was last returning because she was slow in breaking away from our cold but cozy apartment. Once she finally got moving though she headed for a waterfall close in to town, led there by another Komoot route - Rachael’s go-to resource when she wants to go to somewhere and needs an inspiration.

The waterfall sounded more impressive on paper than in real life, but maybe it’s because we’re so late in the year and it’s mostly dried up. It’s a fine walk though that she pads out with a variety of out-and back spurs before finally heading back to the room to let me in. And she saw not one but two cats! a sure sign of a successful outing.

This was pretty funny. She was following the marked route to the waterfall until she came to this sign that told her to go back, because the turnoff to the waterfall was behind her. It seems like it would be better placed at the turn itself.

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Today's ride: 31 miles (50 km)
Total: 4,417 miles (7,108 km)

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