Day 68: Maureillas Las Illas to Figueres

October 16, 2024

A four part (birth)day

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Today was Dodie's birthday, and our basic plan for it was to push our bikes over a mountain, fight giant trucks for 20 km, and then see if we could find some food in a strange town. That beats hanging out at home eating factory cake from the local grocery, we hope.

Greg, the owner of Auberge du Chene, came to see us off. He is big and can seem gruff, but I caught him here with a nice smile.

We confirmed our route over the mountain.

The mountain is lurking over there, and seems quite forbidding.

The first step is to go into the town of Maureillas.

Towers with exposed bells are the way they do it here.

It's a bit hard to see, but this one way street becomes accessible for certain 15 minute slices in the day? Not that we care!

We were fixated on not taking the EV 8 route, so when we reached this intersection, we went left.

But that was an error, immediately starting to climb to nowhere.

Ok, here is the spot. EV 8 goes left, we go right.

Now the climb begins. The road snakes up and up, with views opening to the right down into deep chasms.

The photo can not show just how far down it is, over the side.

That is actually some kind of farm - called the White Farm .

A surprising number of cars came along the road. Blind corners like this area real challenge.

We knew from last time that when the track seemed to call for a left turn up an unreasonable slope, we needed to take it. That last time, we balked at this.

Dodie balked at the first left, and then she balked at the second one.

Finally we came to the spot where we really had to turn. The partly cut off sign says Col de Manrell - that's our ticket!

With the bags off, I figured I could monkey the bikes up and over.

The bikes could not go straight on, but I managed to slide them down sideways.

With the second bike, a man appeared, and gave a hand.

No problem now. I asked why the route had been blocked like this, and came to understand that that stream on the other side floods, so this is acting as a dam. The man said it has been here five years. This confused me a little, since I thought we were on the way we had used last Spring. In fact, we would rejoin that way a little higher up.

Our adventure attracted at least one more of the neighbours (and his dog), and we enjoyed chatting to both of them. It turned out the man was Patrice Herman, head of an organization called Cami of Hope, which is engaged in documenting the flight of Spanish people over the passes here from the Franco tyranny. Their objective is " To highlight the history of Catalonia by establishing active and participatory links between Southern Catalonia (Spain) and Northern Catalonia (France), with particular emphasis on the historical event of the Retirada and the Republican exile of 1939." You can find their website here. We haven't looked at it in detail yet, but it has some evocative photos, like this - showing a far different scene from the Grampies use of the pass today:

We learned that many come to this village annually to explore the history.

These shots are from the first marker, as we proceed upwards.

Ok, here we go. La Vajol is the first town we will reach in Spain.

The mountains here are not uninhabited, they are just sparsely inhabited. You can see the houses below, scattered up the hillside.

One house had these beautiful dogs.

While up here, an older house boasted a flock of sheep.

We were long past any hope of cycling, and just kept on pushing.

In case we felt there was not enough challenge in this, the road changed to gravel.

From past blogs, including our own, the boulders blocking the way to the opening at the very top were the sign that one had made it. But now, we see the boulders have been moved aside. That makes it theoretically possible, but unlikely, to drive from France to Spain by this pass.

There is a monument here commemorating the people who fled Spain, over this pass, in 1939. I somehow missed photographing it, but it was a fairly plain stone wall thing.

Below the monument stood this tour bus. At first I thought it was French, but could not see how it could have got up the French side.

The mystery was soon solved, as the bus was shown to be transporting a gaggle of Spanish school kids on a outing.

We set off down the Spanish side, where the road is very good, but steep and seemingly going on forever. There is no way we or anyone else would want to ride (push!) up this thing. On the other hand, it was only 8 km (straight) down to Agullana, so with patience it might be possible to climb it.

The cork was thick, but not harvested very high on these trees.

At the bottom of the hill is La Jonquera, which is a frenzy of transport trucks, swirling past giant supermarket big box stores. This is where the highway NII begins for us. It's another of that genre of high speed roads, but with a decent shoulder.

Transport truck and Supermercado across the way.

Another transport truck, supermercado, plus a hotel across the way.

We set out along NII, knowing that we only had 19 km to Figueres. But fighting the trucks was a trial, especially where there were roundabouts or filling stations.

Another feature of NII that I had forgotten about was the appearance of "ladies of the road", appealing I suppose to the truck drivers. Last year I had stopped to compliment one on her yellow vest, and drew a laugh:

But this year, maybe it was warmer, as no vests in sight:

So there we go, down the road to Figueres. What a journey!

We got into our room at the Hotel Los Angeles, something that was both larger and cheaper than what we had been finding in France. After a bit of a rest, we went out for a look at the town, and also to possibly find Dodie a birthday dinner.

The old town is compact, but it has everything: lots of outdoor restaurants, a City Hall square, an ancient church, many retail shops, and gelato everywhere.

And oh, tons of ham, if you like that.

And the big draw for this town: Salvador Dali. They have his birth house, and a Dali museum.

We always like the wedge shaped buildings.

We noticed these birds up high, and were impressed by their numbers. They were starlings, but looked a little different.

We chose a restaurant in the City Hall square, and feel we struck it lucky. What we got was not only what Dodie loves, but really just what our systems need at this point. On Dodie's plate (top) was not only the well prepared salmon, but also perfectly cooked asparagus, red pepper, carrot, and a very sweet onion. For me there was a fried egg, seldom seen when in France, a salad with very tasty olives and a good tomato, and "lomo" - pork filet. These dishes were in the 12 euro range - great!

We walked back through the square. We had pushed our bikes to the top of the Pyrenees, screamed down the other side, battled semi-trailers for 20 km., and then found a great meal near City Hall. What a day!

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 3,561 km (2,211 miles)

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Kathleen ClassenHappy Birthday Dodie! It will certainly be one you remember. Dinner was a well deserved reward.
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2 hours ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kathleen ClassenThank you. I agree, it is one for the books for sure.
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8 minutes ago

Eva WaltersWhat an amazing birthday!! Congratulations Dodie and kudos to both of you for making it over the Pyrenees again. So glad you found a good dinner to end the day on a high note.
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4 minutes ago