Day 69: Figueres to Girona

October 17, 2024

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We were still thinking about the Pyrenees climb today, with enough time passed for it to seem like all fun.

We also learned a little more about what we were looking at in Figueres yesterday. The "theatre" was a theatre all right, but it was a building that Dali had worked on and converted to his Dali museum. And the geodesic dome behind was part of the museum as well. We could see the dome from our hotel window at night. I tried to get a photo of it, but my little camera was not quite up to it:

In the morning, we happened to pass right by the Dali birth house:

Here is a photo showing Dali and his little sister.

As we continued through the town, we noted other attractive buildings.

One of our favourite kind of corner houses.

This one has a vaguely Gaudi appearance.

In the market square, we found a confrontation with a dragon statue that for a change did not involve any angels.

The market was a large covered building, and it featured mainly fruit and vegetable vendors.

I went for a look, and focussed mainly on the fruits that in this season in the rest of Europe come from Spain.

Not red pomegranates seem special to us, because ones imported at home are always red.

The colour of these peaches seemed unique, and I tried to send Dodie later to find and maybe buy some, but she did not spot them.

The meat sellers were interesting, not that we would normally go for that kind of stuff.

Panceta is "bacon", but the fat content is way more than we are used to.

We started out for Girona on the NII, and perhaps we could have stuck with it all the way. But quite quickly we deviated onto a variety of road types and through a variety of towns. One of the characteristics of these roads and towns were that they were up and down. We were almost starting to think that the up and downing was excessive, but actually it was fine.

Another big feature on the route was extensive plantings of various types of deciduous trees - closely spaced and in long rows. We have little idea of what the farmers were up to. Only in one case, where we noticed that the tres were oaks, did we think they could be for cork.

Villages were always composed of pleasant stone buildings. Somehow they looked "Italian" to me, but of course they were Spanish.

In one spot we found our first lemon tree. We know that very soon there will be swarms of them.

More images of our roads, and those tree plantings:

One surprise came as we spun past and obvious warehouse of "trade-inn". This is an Amazon like retail operation, run out of Girona. Rather than have a global search of its stock, and maybe some "departments", it seems to have a separate web site for each department. Searching from Canada for things like brake pads or silicon collapsible camping cups, I have often found them on trek-inn or bike-inn. I then proudly announce to Dodie that I am buying the thing from "Spain". Well now, here we are!

We penetrated the fairly limited outer icky bit of Girona, and arrived at the tower of the Saint Felix basilica and the view of the iconic pastel buildings lining the river.

Down from the basilica is a spot that is apparently famous with visitors to Girona. This is El Culo de la Leona (The Lioness Butt). This is a carving from the 12 century, of a lion up a pole. The tradition is to kiss the lion's butt. There used to be a ladder so one could reach it, but a 75 year old French tourist fell and died in 2015, and they took it away. It got replaced, but then removed due to COVID.

The sign days don't kiss the lion's butt.

Beside the pole is this plaque, with a brass replica of the lion. It is now considered good luck to rub the lions brass butt.

Nearby, you can buy these lion turds:

Now we started to walk along one of the narrow and beautiful Girona streets, below the basilica.

We ran into this rather ecstatic man, who was exclaiming that he had found the best milkshake ever.

This is the spot. We resolved to return a little later.

Out on the road we had encountered some people in a van marked "Eat Sleep Cycle" - clearly some sort of "Backroads" operation. Here now was another one. But in this gentle land, we don't see the need for it.

The basilica entrance. They are selling tickets for 12 euros. Too much for us!

Here is the cathedral. These steps are very near our hotel.

Our place is in the former Jewish quarter.

We parked our bikes in a back room, adorned with a Star of David.

A painting on the wall depicts our building.

The place is called Casa Cundaro. We don't know its history, but it is lovely.

Just outside our room. There is nobody around, so we could leave our door open and hang out in this space if desired.

These stairs lead down from our place to cafes and walking streets below.

We descended those stairs, and came upon our "old" bike shop, where mechanic Stephan had replaced our chains last time. We were gratified that the husband and wife owners remembered us, and greeted us so warmly.

Dodie's rear brake again needs bleeding (must have a leak somewhere). Stephan was willing to give it a shot (and he has a good supply of Shimano mineral oil!). I set about showing Stephan the tricks I know about the brakes, and we left the bike with him until tomorrow. Stephan apparently does the mechanical for some very high powered bicycle racers, so we have confidence in him for this.

After leaving the bike, we set off with the camera, just looking for various fun images. Here is what we got:

That's the red "Eiffel" bridge in the distance.

In a square across the river, a statue to defenders of Girona against the Napoleonic French.

This is just called the Boy and the Turtle.

A lady took a shot of this with her cell phone, so I copied her.

Epilog

That look was not quite final. What happened was a sudden and intense thunderstorm, causing us to hide the cameras away.

But when the storm passed, we did run into a couple of things for which the cameras got dug out.

This plane tree had a particularly attractive bark.

And we (re)discovered these not so sweet donut like creations, said to be the typical treat of the town:

And finally, walking back up to the cathedral and our hotel, the path was made of stones, using a fan shaped pattern:

Good for wall paper, or a jigsaw puzzle?

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 3,611 km (2,242 miles)

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