Leaving Barcelona
On Sunday morning, after wrangling two mostly loaded bikes and a trailer down five stories of narrow apartment stairs into the entrance vestibule, one at a time, we then wrangled our Antipodean child into warm clothes and downstairs onto the sidewalk. Wrangling the cumbersome bikes was the easier job. No amount of pre departure preparation was going to see Anika happy about putting on warm clothes. The past two days in Barcelona had told us that much, and moving the dear little one to a intended departure schedule only made matters worse. Its safe to say that our temporary Barcelona neighbourhood was happy to see our noisy convoy depart.
The Medieval bridge in Martorell
As per usual, all was fine once you start moving on a bike, Anika settled, the day was warmed by the glowing sunshine and the metropolis slowly disappeared behind us as we purposely rumbled along roads, gravel paths, and Camino pathways toward our first stop of Cervera. We saw medieval bridges, functional antique carousels and were even almost rammed by a crazed wild boar as it charged out of a field and across the road (its amazing what a bit of frantic yelling will do). All these new distractions could not erase the 100km that we had to traverse while dragging our unfamiliarly loaded bikes gradually up hill into a mild headwind. It was a big first day for us all, we were all unhappy, even the aged thrashings of the 'oh so Aussie' Hoodoo Guru's from the Bluetooth speaker were not enough to distract us from our collective funk. Thankfully the medieval ridge line silhouette of Cervera rose ahead of us. Today raised an important concern; were we going to be able to do what we planned to do each day? We certainly were not going to be able to do another 100km tomorrow. Tomorrow was going to have to be cut in half.
Day 1
Barcelona to Cervera
Distance: 104km
Riding Time: 8hrs45min
Average speed: 11.9km/hr
Medieval Anzac Magic
Cervera is an amazing medieval town. Of course there is many other such towns in Spain, but this was the first that we experienced, and so the most memorable. Air B&B was the avenue for sourcing our accommodation, as campsites were understandably non existent in a fortified, ridge top, medieval town. We stayed in a house on the ancient main street which had been converted into three ultramodern accommodation apartments. It was cosy, well appointed and incredibly well priced. As we only had 54km to travel this day, we got up had the next sock battle of our trip and then pottered around Cervera finding tasty baked goods and foodstuffs for the days journey. Presently the sun rose at 7am and set at 9.30pm, we had lots of time to travel our 54km.
Fittingly today was Anzac day and we came across fields of red poppies. They lined the roads growing wild. {For those from elsewhere: Anzac day is the Australian war memorial holiday and the red poppy is the official memorial flower.} Anika delighted in asking for a poppy till we pulled over and gave her a botanical sample that lasted perhaps for the next hour, then she asked for another.
Google's map app on my phone was the navigator for the day. Most times it works very well when you select directions for bicycle, but somehow it doesn't fully recognise stairs. Yes, after riding country roads, dirt roads and beside canals, we came the the dam wall, and the stairs that we had to ascend to the top of the dam wall so that we could get to our campground on the other side.
Thankfully it wasn't many stairs, about 35 in all, and decoupling the trailer and wrangling the fully loaded bikes was all that was needed.
The Stairs!
Our Camp was in Sant Llorec de Montgai at Camping La Noguera. An impressively large caravan and campground that must absolutely heave in summer when everyone migrates to escape the oppressive heat on the plains. It wasn't Summer, it was Spring that was running late, so the caravan park was a literal ghost town. We were soon to discover why.
Day2
Cervera to Sant Llorec de Montgai
Distance: 54km
Riding Time: 3hrs47min
Average speed: 14.4km/hr
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