Day 45 – 21/05/2013 – Total so far 2514.3km

St Jean Pied- de-Port – Pamplona

79.1km, 6hrs 42mins, 2447m total climb

Sitting in the sun the evening before, we were hoping for a day of sunshine or at least good weather for the first day in Spain - but when we woke up it was grey and cloudy. The rain clouds were hanging in the mountains behind the campsite, waiting to move in. Not a very promising start.

We set of a bit later than usual hoping that the weather would clear. We knew that we were going to cross the border into Spain today, but we didn't expect it to happen only 8km after we left St Jean-de-Port. We passed some randomly located large shopping areas which we guessed were for duty-free reasons in the river valley. Immediately after the border sign we started climbing and it started raining. The road was winding up like a snake along the mountain right next to the walking route and we shared some parts of it with the walkers. It was all very scenic and we were glad to see some real changes in the countryside. The climb was long and similar but not as tough to what we have done in Switzerland. 900m to the top. On the way up we passed quite a few other touring cyclists (the first ones after the three French cyclists we met just after Le Puy), but surprisingly they were all pushing the bikes up the hill. To be fair they were all 25 years older minimum so fair play to them for even pushing up. That must have taken ages to the top, the whole climb was about 15km. It was a good climb for us though, we stopped only a few times to drink something and the slight rain and cold temperatures kept us from overheating.

Just as we neared the summit of the pass at 1050m, we passed another group of cyclists. There was a modern church (our first Spanish one!) at the top and we stopped for to refuel. The other cyclists parked their bikes right next to us and had a little competitive look at our bikes. We got chatting to them and it turned out that they were two German blokes in their 50s from the Bodensee region. They seemed very competitive, and were happy to trade their statistics of how many kilometers and days they had been going for.

The downhill was freezing, we were wet at the top and even though we put on all the clothes we could, it was impossible to keep our hands, feet or anything else warm in the single-figure temperatures. We stopped after the first 200m drop right next to a big white sign – 750km to Santiago! 

We have to mention the colour of Johannas legs. She does like to brake a bit (need second set of pads soon!), and we have worked out that the brake dust from the pads seems to get attracted to her legs (the right one especially as that seems to be the wetter one). See the pics below! On a long downhill in the rain like today, the effect can be pretty impressive!

We were very cold and were thinking of stopping at café in one of the villages on the way but nothing seemed open and the more we dropped in altitude the temperature seemed to rise and then eventually we were treated with a few little 100m climbs to warm us up again.

Originally we planned to go to a campsite at Puente la Reina but it was closed, so we decided the night before to stop in Pamplona instead and also have a day off there. We arrived in Pamplona at around 4pm and before consulting the GPS for accommodation we went straight to the Tourist information and asked for the best place for out budget. They gave us two choices and the first was a winner. A basic but nice hotel right in the middle of a busy side street. Looking forward to exploring the Estafeta tomorrow. 

So far 7 countries! Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, France, Spain!

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1339524

Black line between Spain and France

Sporting the waterproof booties that weren't

It's SOOOOO cold that it burns!!

Old righty gets the worst of the brake dust....

Day 44 – 20/05/2013 – Total so far 2435.2km

Orthez – St Jean Pied- de-Port

82.1km, 6hrs 16mins, 1422m total climb

After a very good night's sleep in the very nice cosy hotel bed with a very comfortable mattress, we got up, packed up and got back on the bikes. After taking a few more pictures of the outside of the hotel we left Orthez alongside the GR 65 (the walker's route).

After about 20km we got to Naverrenx. A pretty medieval looking town with still completely intact town walls with 4m thick walls of different layers. We stopped and had lunch outside the hotel de ville. For a while now we noticed that town names on signs were written in two languages – one in French and below in Basque. Basque seems to look like a cross between a Celtic Language and Mexican! We now were in Pays de Basque, but still on the French side. This and the road signs to Pamplona clearly meant that we were heading in the right direction towards Spain and hopefully sunshine. It was nice and sunny while we had lunch but we started seeing dark clouds crawling up behind the houses. We quickly finished up our sandwiches and just as we got back on the bikes it started raining again – heavily this time!

We had the first glimpse of the Pyrenees in the very distance today. Not so intimidating as the Alps, but actually a welcome relief from all the rolling countryside of South West France!

For today's route Greg had planned two little stops just off the route (about 1km) to look at some chapels which are supposed to be a must-see on the St Jacob's way. We only looked at one, but it was definitely worth it. It was one of the more bodged-up ones and from the outside it looked more like a farm than anything else. There were lots of walking pilgrims when we arrived. It was very pretty inside covered with colourful wall paintings. I decided to make a donation of 2.50EUR. 

The second one we could see from the road and was just another small hill-town with a central chapel. Picture postcard perfect, but also something we have seen a lot of already. We also decided not to use the Pilgrim's Credential book, or to collect the stamps from all of these places. If we had signed up for that then we would be stopping a lot more regularly at these places. We are only out for a cycle really!

There are two kind of French towns on the pilgrims route we have encountered so far – the bigger ones that have the old city with old buildings and churches but also a modern part which is more industrial and the ones that are just little villages that are very medieval and traditional. Arriving in Jean Pied-de-Port was strange and didn't really fit in either of those categories. It wasn't very big, but extremely busy and buzzing with all nationalities of walking tourists – not just the French that we had so far met. We cycled through town along the main road and it all looked more like a busy ski resort town in Switzerland than a popular pilgrim's stop, everyone dressed in Goretex and carrying poles, alongside plenty of street bars where people were sitting out on the roadside in the sun. We cycled to the campsite with the intention to set up first and then come back into town later. The campsite was empty. We set up the tent in our usual routine, had showers, paid for the camping and headed back into town for some food.

We ended up having dinner in a – not sure how to call it – pilgrims diner/restaurant. They offered a “menu de jour” (starter, main, pudding and a glass of wine or cider) for 12.80EUR. We got sat between a lot of other walkers (squeezed on the same table) – on our left a Dutch couple who chatted away to an American woman, on our right a young shy Korean couple. This felt like a hotspot for walkers and we found out that most people start from Jean Pied-de-Port as it is very close to the Spanish border and as there are two or three routes from different origins running through the town.

Dinner was simple but nice. After a nightcap of red wine sitting outside in the sun in another bar, we cycled back to our tent and fell asleep quickly. Tomorrow – Espagne! 

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1339523

Pyrenees spotted in the distance

The little church that was a 'must see'

Dripping with history, still looks like a barn though

Mmm, sandwich - good.

New addition to the frame - fishing rod! :)

New wheel - stronger

Basque below French. I think ETA want it the other way around. The carved crucifix is smaller than the sign for it, but very old and very popular.

A new landscape - at last!

Lunch stop in the sun

Proudly Pays Basque

Navarrenx walls

Head towards the big purple clouds...

Loving the weather again

 

Day 43 – 19/05/2013 – Total so far 2346.1km

Eauze - Orthez

119.6km, 9hrs 24mins – 1570m total climb

It was raining heavily all through the night. The rain was bashing on the caravan roof. But when we got up and it actually had stopped raining.

We were checking the weather forecast in Eauze the night before and as we didn't feel extremely confident that it wasn't going to rain again the next day, we tried to organise a dry place beforehand and phoned the campsite in Orthez to arrange another caravan stay. The only problem was that the guy from the campsite didn't speak a word of English and a very difficult to understand dialect of French and he didn't fully understand our French attempts either.

We left it at that and set off in the hope of getting a caravan without reservation or even better a possible change of being able to camp if the weather was better in Eauze.

The route was not much different to the day before, the weather slightly better with only a few drizzles once in while. We did notice, however, that there were a lot of signs for flooding on the route and some roads were covered in thick layers of sand where it had been washed out of fields by floods.

We cycled through some more French villages all with a little (some with a not so little) church in the middle. The style is very similar and we start to get a slight feeling of “deja vu”. I wonder how the pilgrims must feel. We did stop at a one of two nice examples anyway and took a picture for good measure.

Greg also found two very cheap cars that he would have bought on the spot if I didn't stop him. He did take lots of pictures in case they were still on sale when we come back. He says they are in very good condition, especially the 2002 could make a profitable classic.

20km before we got to Orthez we stopped at a little cafe. We had run out of drinks on the bikes and decided to have something there to keep us going, and buy some water. There were a couple of pilgrims sitting outside and as we overheard them taking we noticed that they were English. The first other than French pilgrims (apart from the Australian guy) we have seen so far, the others all seemed to be French. Anyway the cafe also sold bottles of water, so we got one but we paid for our drinks at the end before we left and as the bar maid had changed they forgot to charge us for the bottle of water. We only noticed ourselves about half hour after we had left. I felt bad and decided that in order to keep Karma happy we will need to make a donation of 2.50 EUR somewhere.

We also seem to have found all twinned French towns for the part of Bavaria I am from. Was strange to read all these familiar names in an unfamiliar area.

We arrived at the campsite just outside Orthez at about 5pm. The campsite looked open. We went to the reception and found the same guy we tried to speak to on the phone the night before. He was a big bearded guy and looked quite Spanish. We have started to notice that people are starting to look different, smaller with darker skin and darker hair. Anyway, the Spanish looking guy at the campsite reception explained that the campsite was closed due to flooding. Bugger! Unfortunate for us he didn't feel the need of mentioning this on the phone the night before and we now had to find alternative accommodation for the night.

We cycled to the nearest hotel on the GPS (Kyriad Hotel) and they had a room but the deal went bad as the woman at the reception turned out to be incredibly rude and then arrogantly spoke French to her colleague in front of Greg (about us) when he perfectly well understood what they were on about. We decided that they didn't want our money, so turned our backs on them and headed for the town centre of Orthez. We found one hotel but it looked really rough and definitely closed, so we checked for other hotels in the area on the GPS and cycled to one of the suggestions. We got there, it looked nice, but the door was locked. We got slightly frustrated and went for a drink in a bar around the corner and also to ask the bar man for nearby hotels. He suggested the same hotel which was closed and another one of which he wasn't sure if it was closed. We desperately didn't want to go back to the Kyriad Hotel with the rude receptionist and decided to try the one that was closed once again (there was a phone number to ring on the door) before looking for the bar man's second choice. As we rolled up to the hotel again, we noticed that the bar next door belonged to the hotel and was open. A guy was working on the sign above the door and we asked him if the hotel was open. Turned out the guy was the owner and the hotel was open. He had only locked the entrance door as he was working on the top level of the hotel. We got a beautiful room. The hotel looked newly renovated, all in French shabby chic. We later found out that it used to be 7 different houses which were originally divided by a narrow street and two courtyard in between two main streets, but later all connected to one building. Must have been a hell of a project.

It was an expensive stay (86EUR) but we felt that we deserved a little treat. We also treated ourselves to a little glass of red wine in the bar, 4EUR for 2 glasses (inclusive peanuts for free). The wine is getting cheaper! 

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1332757

Day 42 – 18/05/2013 – Total so far 2226.5km

Agen – Euze

70.4km, 4hrs, 55mins, 1027m total climb

We weren't really that sad when we finally left Agen after a big bowl of cereal at around 10am. It was not the worst of places to get stranded, but we wouldn't have chosen it for days off either.

We left and headed straight for Condom. The first 20km or so went smooth and we got to Condom quick and stress-free, even started to see signs for Spain at last. We were going to stop at the little town and take a picture of the catholic church in Condom which is also one of the churches to look at on the St Jacob's route, but we decided that we wanted to keep going and only had a quick sandwich on the bottom of the stairs of some sort of monument.

Our other concerns and the main reason for us to keep going was the weather. While we sat enjoying our sandwiches the sky turned darker and darker with rain clouds. The weather is not really on our side at the moment. Just after we got back on our bikes it started raining heavily. It was bitterly cold and the wind was blowing straight in our faces which didn't help much to keep a good average speed.

The route itself was not spectacular either, “French flat” all the way. We have started to call the French countryside “French flat” meaning climbing up a country road for about 20m – 50m just to immediately drop to the original level again, only then to do the same again and again. This can be a little bit frustrating especially when it is blowing a gail in our face. Tough day!

Luckily, we checked the weather the night before and already anticipated that it would be too wet for camping, so we decided to try something different and book one of these mobile home thingys instead of a hostel. We finally arrived at 3pm at the campsite in Euze by which time we were totally soaked and thanks to the wind freezing cold. We were happy to arrive even though the campsite was empty and the reception closed. The problem was that the guy from the campsite told us the night before that he wasn't going to be there at 5pm. Luckily he also left us a number, but we only got through to voice mail and everything started to look like we were going to have to wait for 2 hours.

The plan was to warm up and just have a hot shower at the campsite facilities and get changed out the wet clothes so we didn’t get hypothermia - but then the guy (who looked just like Chris of Family Guy and had seemingly the same level of intelligence) turned up and opened up the caravan for us.

It was just a simple caravan but after a tough day it was like arriving at a 5 star hotel. Nice how much you start to appreciate the simple things. We had a hot shower in the tiny caravan shower wet room and relaxed for a while. We didn't have any food left to make a decent dinner so we decided to brave the weather once again and cycle to the nearest supermarket 1km away. It was still raining but now after we had a break it wasn't that bad.

Had a nice evening in the little caravan and a good night sleep. It was still pouring down outside. 

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1329474

Day 38 to Day 41 - 15/05/13 - 17/05/13 - Stranded in Agen

After arriving at the campsite the weather was pretty good, we even had a dip in the sub-20 degrees pool to cool off (no-one else did!).

We had stopped on the way in and bought a family size can of Confit de Canard with Lentils and a baguette to fill us up.

We arrived on the Tuesday and were going to wait until at least the Thursday for my wheel to arrive at the shop. We planned to sit at the pool and maybe have a wander through town if the weather was good. It wasn't going to be.

We did have a couple of wanders in the town which was a basic mid-size French town. Took some pictures of the cathedral and generally mosied about.

We spoke to a few other campers, one of which was a Dutch guy who was riding his 1950's Matchless motorcycle down to a big meeting in the south of France. He was an engineer working in shipbuilding and had some interesting stories. We said goodnight on the Wednesday after talking with him all evening, and he was there first thing in the morning with more engineering stories! That guy could talk. I am sure you have to be another engineer to enjoy that sort of company...

We went back to the bike shop (20km) on the Thursday lunchtime to drop my bike off after another look around the town, and took away a nice 8kg carbon framed racer as my hire bike! On the way back I was struggling with the head down position and lack of saddle comfort finding it hard to push at all, whilst Johanna said she was flat out and couldn't keep up! It's like being put on a motorbike after driving a donkey for weeks.

We got back and the heavens opened properly this time. We spent the rest of the day and the next just hiding from the weather. We even made food in the awning of the tent that night. Bad weather.

I rode into town on the day we left to pick up the repaired bike. Like any repair shop worth it's salt, they had replaced a load of other components that I didn't know I needed. In fairness, they were consumable items, but it did bump up the bill. I ended up shelling out 182 Euros for the wheel, building and fitting, a new chain, a new rear sprocket and a new gear selector cable. The chain and sprocket were definitely worn, but not so sure about the selector cable. Anyway, I was happy to get a functioning bike back and it was worth it.

For the fourth day of our impromptu stay in Agen, and as the weather had been so bad, we decided to book into a Appart'city hotel in town. We enjoyed our stay in the last one in Valence 2 weeks ago. Of course the sun would shine that day!

We washed everything we owned in the laundrette after the muddy few days and had a nice quiet evening, going into the square to have a drink later on. Then it started raining again!

We prepped ourselves for the morning, getting back onto the bikes and into a forecasted thunderstorm. Aw, come on! Its supposed to be May in the south of France! :(