“TAKE THE TRAIN”

It was the third time we had gotten this unsolicited advise.  We had looked at the steepness of the climb, which is why we decided to wait to climb it in the morning; but not climb it at all was not in our vocabulary. What all these well wishers neglected to mention was that our course had NO shoulder on the narrow roads that led up the mountain.  But I’m getting ahead of the day.

When we awoke it was overcast with a forecast for it to last until noon; hopefully, we’d be close to Barcelona by then.  By the time we had our bikes loaded a half hour later

the sun was shining through a humid, hot and hazy sky.  Our climbing started right away, possibly a bit early and unwarranted, but thankfully we were shortly directed to the correct climb…..but now our legs were warmed up (or so we’d like to think).  This climb was no better, and as mentioned before there was NO shoulder (that’s our road on the left, that crosses the highway in the middle)

just a Jersey wall on the edge of the road which sat on the edge of rock that dropped to the sea. With no shoulder, pictures were impossible except at the few turn-offs, that obviously were not placed for the best picture taking.  But what we could see as we crawled up the mountain was wonderful, fishing boats, water skiers and sailboats enjoying the day.  Had a couple of chances to stop (breath)and check out the views.Now if we’d had the option to take a bike road beside the nice flat train track,

that would be nice, of course, it was not an option.  So for twelve miles we climbed and dropped through the hairpin turns on the edge of the mountain and wondered why the road always insisted on taking you to sea level, before having to climb to the top again.  As we flew down the mountain for the last time, found an alternate route that led to the beach and a very nice bike path.

From here, we had to ride a short stint on the highway and then somehow, miraculously, we (ie: Jerry) wound our way through the city on side streets with little traffic.  With help from a couple of people, we found the apartment we had booked.  Sat on a park bench, enjoyed our picnic lunch while we waited for the manager to let us in.  Did some housekeeping (loads of laundry) and tomorrow we will take our first day off in three weeks and pack in the city of Barcelona.  No glitch this time, we are definitely booked for two days, so while not a ‘real’ day off of doing nothing, at least we’ll see the sights of Spain’s second largest city.