4250 miles - Spain & France june 2009

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Friday 12th
Leaving Puerto Lumbreras we had a chat with some British bikers staying at the Parador. Nice couple on a Blackbird on their way to the Moto GP in Barcelona.
Today we were heading for Javia on the coast, near where we had been the previous year in a villa at Monte Pego.
I’ll keep the bit about the journey fairly short. We dropped on the main dual carriageway and had a steady cruise to just north of Alicante where we dropped onto the coast road and fought our way through the traffic in the sea side towns. It was actually a pleasant trip, taking a bit of a rest to recover from the hard work of rural riding.
Our destination had been booked on line and was to be the ‘Hideaway Bed and Breakfast Health Spa’
We eventually found it after much searching on the headland above Javea in the National Park. It sounds lovely doesn’t it. Bloody Hell!! We arrived to be greeted by what’s his name and thingy his wife. She was in her red swimsuit looking just like Pamela Anderson…… NOT and he had his matching red Speedos and hairy nipples to add to the scene.
Health spa….. OK I may be fussy, but my idea of a health spa was not “you can get in the hot tub with me” from what’s his name.
The room although clean wasn’t tiny it was minute, with only just enough room to carefully manoeuvre around the bed and nowhere for the luggage. The shower door was stuck and the tap scolded Mrs B cos everytime you turned your bum moved the tap.
The advertised Satellite TV was fine, providing you watched what the owners wanted to watch and didn’t set your hopes on seeing anything through before they changed their mind!
Breakfast the next morning was nice, but served by thingy in the same swimsuit. Not good!!
You are all probably saying. What did you do about it. Well I’ll tell you what I bloody did. I smiled and said how nice things were. Cos I’m British OK!?!
We did go out for the evening and explored until we found a brilliant restaurant we had been to before. Hero Restaurant on the CV730 between Denia and Els Poblets. Superb food, served in a lovely courtyard by great staff. Well worth a trip if you’re near.
Saturday 13th
Leaving the Hideaway B & B with a heavy heart we plotted course for Tortosa and the Parador which is a fabulous castle overlooking the town. Using the coast roads once more we found the traffic in many places had thinned and the going was good with nice roads and great views. We popped onto the motorway to avoid Valencia and in a couple of spots for convenience, but mainly stayed on the twisty stuff, although flat allowed for relaxed cruising to let the sun make life good. The bike was still performing brilliantly, never showing any signs of overheating in the 35c temperature.
Tortosa is a lively town with quite a wide cultural mix of people. We booked into the superb Parador and spent a couple of hours with beer on the table, looking across the beautiful roof tops to the huge storm making its way towards us. The thunder and lightning was stunning right up to the point where, stood on top of the highest point in the area, lighting struck nearby. It was close enough to feel the charge on the end of your nose as a definite tingle!! Shit inside now and drink more.
We wandered down from the Parador through very old buildings in a poor state, but it was easy to see how beautiful they had once been. This looked like poverty, with kids hanging around doorways and I have to admit the area was a little threatening . We soon found the town, which is full of old buildings with lovely architecture. No restaurants though. Or at least we couldn’t find them We climbed back to the Parador and ate in the restaurant. Paradors serve food of the local area and traditional dishes. It was very good.
 

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Parador in Tortosa

Apologies for the small poor quality photo's, but I've had to reduce them in size to fit on the web site as the camera was on 8mp's.
 

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Sunday 14th
Last day for Catherine. We packed and rode into Barcelona for the airport. Once again I hugged the coast, which this time was stunning. The coast road near Tarragona is not only a marvel of engineering, but absolutely stunning as it clings to sheer cliffs with the sea crystal clear and vivid blue.
If you go expect it to be slow going as its packed. The traffic kept moving at about 30-40mph so just soak it up. You’re able to look out to sea at all the luxury yachts and beaches.
Free parking at the airport is good and we went in to wait the couple of hours until Catherine’s flight.
Goodbyes and a wave and I headed out of the airport towards my Parador for the night just outside Andorra in La Seu D’Urgell. Back on my own again the bike was quick and light to handle. I headed out of Barcelona passing the incredible Montserrat Monastery high on the cliffs, with only a cable car to get to it. The temperature was climbing and it reached 38c, which was a bit overpowering to be fair. The ride up into the Pyrenees was superb using the C16. The views are breathtaking, the road superb, both in surface and fun and I was loving it!
This was so different to the previous crossing earlier in the trip. The sun and warmth make such a difference.
The Parador is a modern building, built on the site of something and beautiful inside. All the rooms have outside windows, but look out over the inner atrium, which is huge. I wandered out into town after a shower and snooze to find a great little town, with clean streets, friendly people and a real family party feel. Sitting in a street side Pizzeria eating and drinking a bottle of plonk, it felt like the best people watching spot in the world. The mix was good to watch. Young, old walking, cruising in cars, mopeds, bikes, everything.
A short walk after food and bed. I’m knackered.
 

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And it got hotter! 37.5c
 

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Into the Pyrenees
 

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Seu d Urgell and the Parador
 

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Monday 15th
I had decided to make a run for England probably over three days. I don’t much like my own company and with not speaking French of Spanish I felt a bit like Nobby No mates. So Aurillac is my target for the day over the Pyrenees, Andorra, Toulouse. I don’t want motorways or the like, but want to get going a bit.
I was starting to get a little concerned about a noise coming from the rear end. Is the shaft failing? Is it the gearbox? Shit will I make it? (turned out to be my rather smooth tyre) I was that concerned that I ran BMW emergency assist for a local dealer to look at it. After telephone advice I felt it was OK to ride, so pushed on.
Andorra…… It’s just one long line of shops and petrol stations. That’s it. It appears over developed and a bit of a shame really. Having said that I just rode through and didn’t stop to find out what it’s really like. In winter with snow and skiing it may be different. The journey over the mountain is stunning with great roads, incredible scenery and air so fresh you can smell the fly’s fart. I will definitely be going back to explore the Pyrenees more.
Don’t make the mistake of programming your Garmin to take the shortest route. It did as asked. Toulouse centre was lovely, with it 500,000 sets of traffic lights (on my bit alone).
The French roads, now I had sorted Garmin were a pleasure, with long empty D roads and able to keep to speed up in the upper reaches of reasonable I was making good progress. Only stopping for a Big Mac I arrived at my hotel after a good day. Basic, but fine I stopped in the Hotel Aurena. As it was a Travel Lodge type place there was no restaurant, so a walk into rainy Aurillac was needed. I had a good walk by the river into the centre, which on Monday is definitely closed. However I did find an open, but deserted Chinese so sat down to be adopted by a very bossy Chinese woman who dictated what I ate, how and what with.
She was great. Really funny and we had a good laugh. Like being a kid again as I had to eat everything before my pudding!
 

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Tuesday 16th
Right another 300 or so miles of planned D roads and looking to stop around Chartres. I had decided to ring home about 4pm to get a hotel booked depending on how far I’d gone. I’d also arranged to call into Adventure BMW in Limoges to get the bike looked at.
The mechanic was good, spoke no English, but understood. I just needed to reassure myself that things were OK. He test rode it and pronounced it ‘Bonne’.
4pm came along after 200 wet miles and nearly 350 in total for the day. I was already further than I thought. “Do I stay over another night or make a dash for the coast and Calais? A quick phone call confirmed that trains ran all night, so with a McDonalds inside I gritted my teeth and pushed on.
I arrived at the tunnel at about 9pm, paid my 103 euros! Robbing bastards! And sorted out getting on. I was too tires to even contemplate going for the ferry to get a cheaper crossing. I had rung home and a bed awaited me at the Travel Lodge in Ashford. On the train two other bikes arrived, both travelling separately. We stood and chatted, whilst one chap examined, spoke to and cleaned every single fly off his bike. Not healthy. My fly’s were trophies of a tough adventure and made me look hard. I learned that the guy next to me had booked his ticket online, albeit a day return and was paying £11 for the same trip.
Who works out the f’ing prices.
610 miles a Travel Lodge, Food Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Wednesday 17th.
M2 – M25 – M11 – A1 – Belly Buster Breakfast in the diner – A1 – Home!!!

All in all what a fantastic trip!.....Great bike, great weather, great wife, great food!
Would I do it again. YES!!
But we think we'd do two 150-200 mile days and then a day off and repeat. The constant going was too much for the type of trip we wanted.
The only down side as far as the GS’ers are concerned is that the bike is now sold as is my Blackbird. I know, get it off your chests, but I’ve ordered a new fully loaded K1300S.
The 1200GSA was superb and does everything on the tin. I just have sports bike, huge acceleration and power ranger leathers in my blood. Having said that. I will have another GS in the future, am already planning my next trip for the two of us and will keep reading the site.
Au revoir & Chow
 

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Excellent report, thanks for making the effort to write it up for us :clap
 
Another one...

saying thank you. A great and interesting report. I suppose ideally we would all ride GS'S as we use this site but we don't but we still love this site. Well worth the £12.
 
Great report and very entertaining. Thanks for putting in the effort with the text and pictures. Cant wait to take my first trip next May down to the Pyrenees.
 
Thanks for the report:thumb ....... a large number of us go on these trips but only a few get round to doing the the reports, so well done :clap:clap
 


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