Edge of the Known World: Spain!

Putting the tandem together in Barcelona Sants train station

Barcelona is fierce about it's identity as the capital of Catalonia. Catalan is the main language on all the signs, which often left me wondering whether something was written in Catalan, or whether my Spanish just sucks.

We ate at this tapas place twice. It's fun because the tapas are all laid out on a buffet for you to try. When you finish eating one, you put the stick in the little silver cup. Before you leave, the server counts the sticks and bills you accordingly. When we ate here at the beginning of the trip, I was searching the tapas for things that looked familiar. By the time we were ready to go home, I had gone a little tapas-crazy, and was taking the wierdest-looking ones I could find.

Chuck and I stayed in an apartment in the top of a warehouse. It was fun, with an industrial feel.

La Sagrada Familia

Jamon: breakfast, lunch and supper of champions

Auritz Burguete, the first town we stayed in on our bike trip. Looks alpine, huh?

What sport is played on this court?

People in Spain use their shutters daily to keep the heat of the day at bay. These little iron guys hold the shutters out of the way when they are open.

On our second day, which was our longest, we traveled only about 50 miles, but climbed 3,800 feet. When I took this picture just above the village of Anso, we were whacked.

Anso, my favorite village!

We were so hungry and thirsty. We ate like crazy in Anso. Here is Chuck with migas (meat and bread crumbs) and a nice red wine.

Instead of screen doors, people in this part of Spain hang these vinyl cords over the doors.

Here is the tunnel just beyond Anso. We had quite a few tunnels, some short and easy, some long and scary.

Jasa

We traveled to Jaca, which is a bit bigger than the towns we had been staying in. At City Hall, we found these "gigantes". They are carried through the streets on fastival days.

Jaca also had a citadel, but it was closed when we went to see it. In its former moat area, it has reindeer, for reasons I am a bit unclear on.

The pass at Puerto de Cotefablo was a tunnel.

We stayed in Broto for an extra day to do some canyoneering.

While we were in Spain, it was the Feast of San Fermin and there was bullfighting in Pamplona every day for a week, preceded by the running of the bulls. There was slow-motion footage each morning of that day's run, with plenty of close-up coverage if someone got gored, tossed or trampled. Everyone loved it. The old women would gather around the TV in the room in Broto where we ate our breakfast. A guy got tossed and an old woman cried, "Ole!"