Out of Spain and into France

This post talks about riding from Girona, out of Spain and into France along the coast, and up to Perpignan. 156km of riding, spread (unevenly) over 3 sunny days.

Sorry for the delay since the last post. My internet access hasn’t been steady, and so will generally only post blog updates on my rest days (about once a week). In the meantime, I tend to be posting quite a bit on my Facebook page, which you don’t have to use FB to view. I’m also updating my photos on Smugmug more regularly than I’m blogging too- you can find them here.

So, the weather’s been great since I left Girona. I rode a shortish day through the countryside to a little town called La Tallada d’Empordà where I stayed with some great (and my first) WarmShowers hosts- Matt and Steve. They’re in a really nice house (an old converted barn) which you can see here:

From there I headed back to the coast at Escala where you ride along with the Mediterranean on your right and Roman ruins on your left.

Then back through the countryside and all the little towns that make up this part of the world. It was really cruisy riding. I even rode a gravel backroad at one stage.

There was a little hill between this area and the coast a Llanca, where I’d been planning to stay the night. I got to the campsite, and it was pretty crappy and there was no-one around to check me in. It was pretty early, so I decided to keep moving and try my luck further along. I rode, hoping to either find an open campground (which I thought was unlikely) or somewhere to free-camp. I kept riding, through the rest of Spain, and didn’t find any campsites. Here’s a photo from the last climb out of Spain to the French border.

Into France and things didn’t seem much better, it was all up-and-down like the last few dozen km in Spain were, and it was starting to get late. The area is relatively densely populated, and there was very little in the way of free-camping opportunities. I ended up stopping and asking a nice older man if he knew of any campsites nearby, and he said that there were actually two in the town I just passed- he even phoned up to make sure they were open! I stayed at my first Municipal Campsite that night in the town of Banyuls-sur-Mer. They’re great for my purposes- pretty cheap (usually <10 Euro), and have sometimes even have free wifi.

The next day saw a few more hours of coastal riding- ups-and-downs with nice views, including stopping in little towns like this one and Port Vendres:

Then flat riding across the plains towards Perpignan. I got caught here again with motorways that didn’t have easy alternatives. But I think I’m starting to get the hang of navigating so that I’m not losing too much ground, and being able to read the symbols on my GPS that say whether I should or shouldn’t be able to ride there.

Not a lot to say about Perpignan. I rode through town a bit on the way to the campsite, and just hung out there for the afternoon reading etc.

It was a really nice ride around the coast, and I’m glad I went that way instead of the more direct route over the pass in the Pyrenees (even though it would’ve meant only 500m of climbing instead of 800m!).

Remember to check out my progress on my Actual Route page, I’m trying to keep it up to date. I hope it’s not loading too slowly for people?