Day 18: Thursday May 3 2007, Drive through the Pyrenees, Spain
Position at 2 p.m.: 42 degrees 21.434' N latitude, 001 degrees 27.566' E longitude, (Hotel Nice, La Seu d' Urgell, Spain).
Bob: After breakfast we reluctantly checked out of our "room with a view" and piled our luggage into the car for the drive north to the Pyrenees. Looking carefully at our map of Spain, we decided the best route was to double back a bit almost to the outskirts of Barcelona and then head pretty much due North on C-17 to the small city of Ripoll. From there we had our choice of three scenic roads heading approximately West over to C-16 where we turned North again until we met up with N260 which we planned to follow to La Seu d' Urgell. La Seu d' Urgell was just south of Andorra, which we wanted to visit the next day, and was the largest town in the area, which we hoped would translate into several available hotels to stay in. As we proceeded North on C-17 we climbed steadily and finally started seeing not just white-capped mountains but mountains completely covered in snow come into view in the distance. That surprised me. Then Monika noticed that the green of the trees and shrubs was the light yellowish green of the very early springtime rather than the deeper green of late spring or summer. And when we stopped for a snack we immediately noticed that the temperature in the foothills of the Pyrenees was 11 degrees Celsius rather than the 17 degrees we had experienced on the Mediterranean coast. |
Monika: Today was the first day of driving into the unknown. We had a rather rough idea of where we wanted to go--the Pyrenees--and how we wanted to get there. I had the maps and our route mapped out. Of course, the first problem arose, when the obvious merge with the road we wanted to take was a roundabout with several signs for each direction, none of which I really wanted and road construction to boot. So we ended up driving through a town. We decided to follow a truck who got us out of town and across a river, but then went into an industrial park. A tour bus held more promise and it did indeed get us on the right road north. |
Bob: The mountains became steeper and more majestic the closer we got. We finally dived under an outlying ridge of the Pyrenees using the Cadi Tunnel. The Cadi tunnel is 5 kilometers long and cost us over 10 Euro to use! Still, it was easier than detouring back to the Mediterranean coast to go around the mountains and besides at the end of the tunnel we found a spectacular view of the central range of the Pyrenees that divides Spain and France. |
Monika: Once we got into the foothills we were awed by the snow covered peaks in the distance. All the major roads are north-south roads. To get from east to west you have to rely on minor roads or go far south into the plain. So we picked a likely looking candidate to take us over to the next north-south road. This little road, with marked lanes at least, was all curves. The views everywhere were breathtaking. There was not much traffic on the road, so Bob didn't have to worry about idiots trying to pass him, and we could stop for pictures. The mountains were straight up and were rocky. Some of the coloration reminded us of the Badlands of Sought Dakota. One intrepid bicyclist was trying to catch us every time we stopped for pictures. I wouldn't want to ride a bicycle there, too many ups and downs. We finally got to the next north-south road, that took us into the first mountain range. A snow covered peak kept staring at us ahead. But not to worry. A 5 kilometer tunnel (Cadi Tunnel) took us through the mountain. A marvel of engineering! |
Bob: I was pretty tired of the scenic but wearing mountain driving by the time we arrived in La Seu d' Urgell. We followed the signs to a very nice looking Information Center, but it was closed for the afternoon siesta between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.! Fortunately, a map showing the hotels in town was posted outside where we could examine it carefully, and knowing the locations of the hotels we drove into town to find a nice one, and we did find a nice one, a very Nice one, in fact. We booked a room at the Hotel Nice for two nights, maneuvered the car down two floors into an underground parking lot, rested a bit, and then in the early evening walked around the city. Although small, La Seu d' Urgell was a very nice city with the ubiquitous Cathedral anchoring the old section of town. Using the GPS to guide our steps, we also walked down to a riverfront park and found that it was built for the kayak and canoe races for the 1992 Olympic Games held in Barcelona and environs. The courses were apparently still being used for practice because the wires with the pipes marking the course were still hanging above the channels. The water level was too low for actual kayaking, but we saw the big upstream reservoir and huge doors that could be used to divert the many tons of water into the course required to make it a challenging Olympic event. I remembered watching the kayaking events from those Olympic games, and it was exciting just to see a real piece of Olympic history. Coming back to the hotel room, I had sandwiches and Monika had a piece of pizza for dinner, after which we read for a while before turning in for the night. |
Monika: On the other side of the mountain was a wide valley that had a nice east-west route to our stop for the night: La Seur D' Urgell. We stopped at the information center at 2:10. It was, of course, closed for the 2-4 siesta, but there was a map with the town's hotels posted outside. The second one, Hotel Nice, had a room for us. And there even was a garage (10 Euro per day). So we parked the car and relaxed for a couple of hours. After that we took a walk through the city, past the Cathedral, a seminary, and finally to a Parc Olympic that had piqued my curiosity. It turned out to be a park with a kayaking course that had been created for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Unfortunately no one was practicing, so the water was low. They had diverted the water from the river El Seqre so that they easily could control however much water they wanted on the course. |
| Prolog | Map of Cruise | Map of Spain | Epilog |
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