Day 14 - Guimaraes, Portugal to Lisbon, Portugal

 

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Posted by Armando

Day 13 - Geres, Portugal to Guimaraes, Portugal

 

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Day 12 - Santiago de Compostela, Spain to Geres, Portugal

 

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Posted by Armando

Day 11 - Burgos, Spain to Santiago de Compostela, Spain

 

In every trip there is that special day you look forward to and this was the day. When we started putting together this trip we spoke about doing the Camino de Santiago and this was the day. The first time I heard about the Camino was from a book from Paulo Coelho called "The Pilgrimage" (1988). Paulo is one of my favorite authors and if you have never read Paulo do yourself a favor and read one of his books. The most well known is the Alchemist although for me my favorites are Warrior of Light and By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.

But I digress. The Camino de Santiago In order to better prepare for the day, I had spent some time on the Internet and found a great application Camino 2.0 which divides the way from Burgos to Santiago into d

 

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Posted by Armando

Day 10 - Santander, Spain to Burgos, Spain

After a short night, as we arrived quite late the night before, we woke up to a foggy morning. There was no forecast for rain but it would be foggy close to the coast so we decided to go inland and visit the small town of Potes which is right in the middle of the Picos de Europa.

 

However before we started our trip we decided to do a quick tour of Santander, Spain. With a population of 200,000 it is a medium size city and the standard of living is quite high. Out of the cities I have visited in Spain I would consider this one high in the ranking order in terms of best places to live in Spain.

During breakfast Paula and I spent some time discussing what we would be doing for the day as distance between Santander and Burgos (where we would be sleeping that night) was about 220 Kms which would put this as the lowest mileage day we had done so far.

As we were very close to the mountain range Picos de Europa (literally: "Peaks of Europe", often abbreviated to the Picos) which is a range of mountains 20 km inland from the northern coast of Spain. The most widely accepted origin for the name is that they were the first sight of Europe for ships arriving from the Americas.

We travelled West from Santander parallel to the northern Spain coastline and then turn South towards Potes, Spain where we had lunch. The way is very nice as we are very close to the coastline and to towns like Santillana del Mar, Spain and San Vicente de la Barquera, Spain.

But the real riding started when we turned South towards Potes, Spain with many Kms of winding roads between the mountains and with a river to make every picture a special one. Highly recommended road.

After pure motorcycling riding bliss we arrived at Potes, Spain which is a very picturesque town nested in the middle of the Picos de Europa. We were again very surprised with low price of food and not too many tourist which was a reminder that Europe is in a deep recession and Spain one of the most affected countries. The day was beautiful, temperature just right and we enjoyed having lunch outside.

After some quick shopping of memorabilia we saddled up and rode towards the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liebana which is a Roman Catholic monastery located very close to Potes, Spain. It is located in the Cantabrian Mountain and is one of the five places of Christianity that, together with Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela and Caravaca de la Cruz, has the privilege of perpetual indulgences.

For me I was looking for a place with a great view and monk-like calmness. It turned out to be a good call to visit and we were amply rewarded by beautiful views, singing birds and just a feeling of peace.

With all of these detours, a day of plenty of time to get to Burgos was starting to be stretched as we were having just too much fun. It was time to hit the road.

And what a road it would turn out to be. There was a lot of fog, which was a pity as we were not able to see the great panoramic views and the road were quite technical with a lot of quite narrow switchbacks. This is where I really enjoy the GSA as she loves these challenges and always responds in a five star way.

We arrived in Burgos and rode to our hotel that was bang in the center of the city right next to the cathedral. It was sureal to be in a room that one looked out of the window and saw the city's cathedral just there. We took a miriad of pictures to try to capture what we felt. It was amazing. The hotel was also very using and service and breakfast were very good. All at 75 Euros per night, it was a big difference from prices in France and other countries we had visited.

As we left the hotel for diner we noticed that something was going on, lots of people in the street and great festive atmosphere. It turned out we had arrived right in the middle of the city's homage to their patronage saints. I am sure in the past these festivals had a lot to do with religious reasons but now they are used for people to meet and have a great time. A great time we all had. Lots of music, great food and great company as Fernando (a colleague of mine) and his wife came to meet us for dinner. They are both from Burgos and there is nothing like having a local on your side. For dinner we had tapas very well "watered" down with local beer brew. Thanks Fernando for a great evening.

After dinner, we walked back to hotel. We really like the way that in most European cities the center of the town has been closed up for motor traffic, cafes are set up outside and people are walking with their families and/or friends just having a good time.

We stopped to see a very nice show being put together by a group called Anaconda. They played well known music, we're accompanied by lots of light and energy was all around. The most amazing thing was that their stage (including massive light show) was all at the back of a very large trailer that gets pulled around the country and literally in matter of hours this truck turns into a latest-technology mobile stage. Just amazing ...

By the time we got back to hotel I was beat and went to sleep quite fast. Paula told me the next morning that the fiesta continued until 3 in the morning. And this goes on every day for one week. Wow. No wonder they beat the world in soccer ...

 

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Posted by Armando

Day 9 - Bordeaux, France to Santander, Spain

 

After five amazing days in France we would move today to Spain. We were looking forward to that indeed as we can understand and also speak the language quite fluently and as we have found there is much more intimacy in a conversation when you are able to converse in local language. We were also looking forward to visit Basque country and specially see the high mountains. Up to now we had not encountered any real mountains in our trip and today we would see the Pyrenees and the next day the Picos de Europa. And of course looking forward to the Spanish cuisine, paella ... tortilla ... chorizo ... gazpacho ... jamon ... dulce con leche and many other delicacies.

But I am moving ahead too fast. As we had arrived very late in the evening at our hotel the night before we were not able to admire the country side or the actual hotel we were staying in. This hotel we had chosen using the Logis site (highly recommended way to find accomodations in places you do not know) and this was how they characterized our hotel "a charming place, with a lovely garden, providing ten very comfortable bedrooms. As soon as the nice season arrives, you can take your breakfast or have lunch outside on the terrace overlooking flowers and trees."

 

I was looking forward to the breakfast part which turned out to be even better than I had anticipated. Quality of food was excellent and couple who owned the hotel were very service oriented.

 

As we were having breakfast we heard someone shout "Portugal, Portugal ..." (as a painful reminder Portugal that evening would play Spain in the semi-finals for the European cup). It turned out a young lady that worked in the hotel was Portuguese and was very excited about Portugal chances that evening. So we chatted a bit.

We had planned to do the trip into Spain hugging the coastline and stop for lunch at Biarritz but plans sometimes are made to be broken we threw that plan to the wind and changed our route to go through Lourdes, France. Paula was very excited to go see a town where Mary appeared to Bernadette Souberiois on eighteen occasions and it has become a major place of Roman Catholic pilgrimage and of miraculous healings. I was excited when I read that Lourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France, the word Pyrénées doing the trick.

I also knew of this area quite well as it is usually used as stage/s for the Tour de France. This year there were two stages (15 and 16) that would use Pau as the main town around where the stages would be finishing and starting. Stage 16 would be specially difficult with two Highest Category mountains, Aubisque and Tourmalet and two Category One climbs, Aspin and Peyresourde. The Frenchman Thomas Voeckler would win the stage and take the polka dot (king of the mountain) jersey which he would wear until arrival in Paris.

 

 

The ride into Lourdes is very beautiful and the closer we get to the Pyrenees it just gets better.

 

The day was very hot at 100F (38C) and while Paula visited Lourdes I baby sat the bike and had lunch just outside. There were a lot of people on the streets and as the town is very charming we took a number of interesting pictures.

 

 

 

We also had lunch in Lourdes and then we saddled up and took a nice winding road next to the river northbound until we got highway and then turned west towards Saint Jean-de-Luz as we had heard this was a very nice town next to the sea.

 

It was quite late so we could not stop and just drove past the town towards San Sebastian then Bilbao. As we were leaving Bilbao, the heavens opened up and we had to stop in a tunnel to put the rain gear on. After being there for about 5 minutes we were told (through the loudspeaker closest to us) that we should not be stopping in the tunnel (although we were out of traffic's way) to change clothes. As it was raining quite hard and we did not dare to go out there without the proper clothing, we accelerated the process and got ready.

The riding into Santander was quite technical and we found a car that was going at acceptable speed and just shadowed it until the outskirts of Santander. As we were arriving and Portugal was playing Spain that evening for the semi finals of the European cup we listened for hooting and noise in the streets. As we heard nothing we assumed Portugal had won. As it turned out, game had gone into penalties and it was still going on. As we parked at the hotel and took off our helmets we heard a lot of commotion coming from the bar and then a loud shout immediately followed by clapping and more shouts. Spain had just won by penalties. We were happy to have arrived safe and sound after a very long day but quite sad that yet again we could not beat the La Roja. Spain went on to eventually win the cup and to all La Roja fans ... Muchas Felicitaciones !

We were allowed to leave the GSA just in front of the hotel for the night. We were very happy we had chosen a good hotel with room service which we used that evening.

As we arrived on Day 9 to Spain here is the original Eviva Espana performed by Belgian singer Samantha in 1971.

 

For the next days we would be in Spain and we were looking forward to ride the Picos de Europa and El Camino ... Ole !

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Posted by Armando