It’s been a complete change of pace riding along the coast compared to the middle/interior of Spain, both in terms of the cycling and the people! I have seen and met so many English-speaking people here enjoying the winter sun.

Sorry I’ve not managed to post in a while, not had a lot of wifi at campsites and running out of data on my mobile. And I’ve been taking too many photos to upload… but anyway, here is a whopper six-day summary catching you up with the adventure… about 415km from Valencia to Barcelona!

Sunday 02/02/2020 — Day 18

I gave myself an easy start to the day as I wasn’t planning on riding far and I wanted to say goodbye to my warmshowers hosts Emilia and Amrei before I left, and they were having a lie-in after finding an awesome party (I managed to stay with people way to cool for me 😛 ). Said a quick goodbye to them and sooo grateful they let me stay it was lovely to meet them and have a place to chill and explore Valencia from.

I am all dressed up in my warm weather clothes for the first time! Lightweight linen top and shorts (I have lightweight trousers for more conservative countries later). It wasn’t as hot as the day before, but still the warmest weather I had ridden in so far.

The ride was nice, flat and partially back along the Via Verde I had cycled along coming in to Valencia. It wasn’t as close to the sea as I would have liked, but I am sure I will get more of that later on. I was almost tempted to make a longer day of it, but I stuck with my decision.

The camp site had suffered in the storms a week or two ago and the ground was muddy but not the worst I had camped on. I got the hammock out for the first time, nice to not be sitting on the floor. I think I might need to get some more robust rope though as the lightweight string I have doesn’t fill me with confidence! While I was eating lunch a family to came over to talk to me about cycle touring and find out what I was doing. Turns out they have been introducing their daughter to cycle touring as well and had done the Via Verde Ojos Negros with her which was so cool. They were heading back to Madrid so they offered me a loads of fruit and veg — more then I could carry — but I did grab some for the road, specially the oranges. 😀 I love meeting people on the road.

The chill time might not have been the best idea… I got pretty blue with nothing in particular to focus on. I kinda pushed through it helped by the Spanish family and a Scottish guy called Michael I met when checking into the camp site. We had a few drinks at the camp site bar and was nice to talk to him about all sorts. He offered to make me dinner as well, Haggis and Tatties as a belated Burns Night.

I popped to the beach to have a swim, because why not?! The sea was colder then I thought and being later in the day it wasn’t so warm when I got out either… but still I swam for about 5 minutes and it was a different movement of muscles which was good.

Dinner with Michael was really nice, very stodgy and filling which was a nice change from my lentils. He has been travelling around Spain and Portugal for the last 3 months, enjoying the sun and the camper-van life. He also shared some of his whisky collection with me, including a portion of the Angels Share 😉 . I went to bed rosy cheeked and a little bit merry.

Monday 03/02/2020 — Day 19

A comfortable night’s sleep and got up at a reasonable time, though dew had made everything really wet! I kinda hung around, hoping things for dry a bit. I popped to the beach to see the sunrise, which was nice and peaceful.

While I was waiting for the tent, hammock and other stuff to dry the lady in the camper van next door offered me a cup of tea (which I can never say no to) and I enjoyed chatting with them. Michael also came round to say bye and gift me some Angels Share and a wagon wheel! I was so touched.

Eventually I gave up on drying stuff, I would be putting it all back up again any way so should be O.K. and got on the road. Riding was interesting through the marshes and comfortable temperature wise. I met another female tourer going to other way which was cool and exchanged a few words. I also passed a really cool town which was still contained within its original walls. People had added doors and windows but it had not outgrown them. A lovely elderly Spanish lady started talking at me, I have no idea what she was saying but it was sweet that she seemed really interested in me. I got that she liked I had come into the town, that I had covered my shoulders from the sun and she said something about Brexit but other then that it was all look attentive and try to guess. I think I will end up having a lot of ‘conversations’ like this.

I finally made it to a Decathlon which allegedly had the sandals I wanted for this adventure in stock, as I need something different to wear other than my bike shoes (sometimes walking around the cleats start to hurt the balls of the feet). It took me way too long as the only pair in my size had been separated and I had to hunt through them all to find the other one!

I had to start pushing quite hard to try and make it to the camp site I wanted to stay at that night. While rushing I met another cycle tourist!! Sven didn’t have any plans on where to stay so decided to come to the same place I was aiming for 🙂 It was cool to ride with another cyclist and chat a bit. Definitely made me cycle a bit harder. Got to the camp site before it was dark and we had the camping pitches all to ourselves.

From what I gathered Sven has just passed 14,000km cycling and is making his way home to Germany having nearly finished his adventures. I kinda wanted to chat more but I was also quite pooped from the hard riding to make it to the campsite and wanted to try something different for dinner.

Sooo I have been craving pizza (it is my favourite food!) so I decided to try Tara Alan’s Calzoni recipe from her book “Bike. Camp. Cook.” and was successful as well! My only thought was it was a little small. Maybe next time I will make two…

With that all done, snuggled up in bed for some sleeps and a hope that Sven doesn’t snore too much 😛

Oh, and realised that around lunchtime today I actually crossed into the Eastern hemisphere!

Tuesday 04/02/2020 — Day 20

Pretty standard start for me but with some company. We had discussed trying to reach the same camp site for tonight as well. We were riding our own routes and speeds, which was a relief for me as I was worried about slowing Sven down to much.

Saw my first Eurovelo 8 sign! Not that it was showing anything in the direction I was travelling in, but was cool to see one as I will probably be following this a lot more later! My route took me more a long the coast so I could see some more of the effects of the storms and enjoy cycling by the sea. There was a bit of climbing today as I had to head inland around a nature reserve but it was a nice change of pace and nothing compared to the climbing I had to contend with in the first week.

Sadly a headwind was building through the day so I was struggling to make the distance Sven and I had originally agreed on, so decided to go for our back-up plan B campsite. Sven was ahead of me and found that was closed… grrr! With the building winds and not sure where I was heading I doubled-back a short way to a site I had passed and seen was open. I was sad to not be camping with Sven again as I wanted to chat to him more about his adventures.

The wind was really building and although the camp site was pretty sheltered it was all under trees… I was slightly nervous I was going to get squished!! Continuing the more adventurous cooking, I did scrambled egg wraps with pepper and onion for dinner. Very yummy. Managed that without incident but when I was trying to boil some eggs for snacks the next day a branch came down and knocked the pan over!! Lucky no fuel was split, but I had to start again with the hot water…

I had managed to catch a bit of sun as well so my face was nice and warm… been doing pretty well with the sun cream, must remember to top up during the day. I settled down for a very noisy night. The wind must have died down in the night but I didn’t really notice as it was exchanged for the noise of waves crashing on the rocky beach.

Any today’s exciting statistic… I’ve now passed the 1000 km mark! 😀

Wednesday 05/02/2020 — Day 21

Hurrah! I didn’t get squished in the night! And nothing too large came down near me, but the tent did end up covered in bird poo and a bit of pine sap 🙁 Had to get that cleaned off quickly which slowed me down a bit.

With less wind the riding was a lot easier today. Weather has cooled off a bit so added some layers back to stay a little warmer. I had a nice snack stop at a looking at a cool bridge.

Lunch stop was also at a lovely town with a charging bench which I tried to get a little power while eating my lunch. This was not far from the point I had been aiming for the day before, glad I hadn’t tried to push on through.

After lunch is where the fun started… mostly the routing has been fine and it is the weather conditions that effect whether I take the tracks it chooses but in this case it was BAD! The routing decided to take me along the GR92 which seems to be a coastal path here. So first I had to drag my bike across a beach, then up the washed out hill. The next fun bit was trying to get it passed a tree and rock which was too close for anything! I had to take all the easily removable bags off the bike and drag it around the tree and up the rock, then carry the bags over and put it all together without dropping anything over the edge!! Only to have to repeat this to get back to the normal track! Need to check route more closely, LESSON LEARNT HARD!!

It was then a zoomy ride to the camp site for the night. With some interesting sights I had to stop to photograph for you all.

Here I met Chris and Banksy the caravanning cat!! Yay a cat I could stroke and be friendly with (all the local cats and strays seem to be too timid). It was nice to chat to Chris about bikes and adventuring as he spends some time travelling in his caravan each year. Dinner was a simple lentil concoction again as it was quite late once I was done chatting showering etc… a good night’s sleep was had 🙂

Thursday 06/02/2020 — Day 22

No (bird) poop and a mostly dry tent, so got moving in the morning at a good pace. I have 80km to cover today to make it to the next camp site that was open. So felt the need to pedal pedal pedal.

The riding today was much more along the coast and lovely sandy beaches mixed with some industrial areas. This meant I didn’t take the pretty bits for granted!

For a snack stop I found a nice beach with a bench and water to enjoy some sun and sea. What I didn’t realise was there was an amazing roman amphitheatre behind me and by the time I realised it was to late and I needed to get some miles in… doh! 🙁

More pedalling and more coast line with nice views and warm (ish) sun. My lunch stop was timed with an open supermarket but I ate at a nice sandy beach and decided to dip my toes in the sea as I would be staying away from the coast tonight.

So I headed inland toward the camp site, climbing away from the shore but it was a change of pace and I knew I was stopping soon. I was in for a little bit of a shock when I got to the camp site it was 20 EUR for a pitch for me and the bike! I could have been staying in a hostel a little further on for less than that. But I was there so went with it… but damn was I going to be having a long hot shower! Again met some nice people while setting up and got chatting. This is the nice side of camp sites (with other people there!). Kept dinner simple — lentils again — but added some sardines to change it up a little.

Friday 07/02/2020 — Day 23

BARCELONA TODAY!!!! YAY!! Looking forward to a longer break and seeing someone I know. But had really good sleeps, and didn’t expect my alarm to go off (which I have finally managed to change to a recording of Tia meowing like crazy…)

First order of the day though was to head to Vilanova for Churros and Chocolate as Malin had said they were the best around!! I couldn’t say no! Took me a while to work out where to get them but finally managed. Yummy sweet and filling… happy Ruth.

I was a bit concerned that the route contained a steep bit of climbing along the coast as the map was very wiggly and the map suggested it was high. But when I got there, there was nothing to worry about and it was a lovely bit of road to ride. The climbs weren’t too steep and the zooms down were twisty and interesting. And nice views along the coast and seeing the railway and road. The only down side was there was no verge and quite a bit of traffic including trucks, but as I have found in Spain they were all very patient and respectful.

Then it was one last zoom and then flatter riding to Barcelona! Oh but the traffic started to build and the very regular traffic lights kept catching me out! So it was actually harder and much less fun riding then in the hills. Eventual I reached Barcelona proper and the cycle lanes started… now they really are nice! Easy to follow and everywhere, just wish there were less traffic lights… Here are some quick snaps of the route in.

More images of Barcelona will follow when I actually go exploring. Getting here has been a focus for some time and so feels like a good milestone. Well, actually I’ve cycled about 1280 km since Santander! So now going to have 3 days off here to explore, plan the next stage of the properly, and rest.

I made it to Ferran’s place and it was so nice to meet him again… he was the first warmshowers guest I ever hosted at my house! I got some chill time and a warm shower before meeting his housemates and sharing dinner with them. Eventually I had to give in and head to bed as it was 0100 and I was sooo tired. So tired I didn’t notice them leave to take one of them to the hospital as he had hurt his shoulder… wrestling?! :O

So this is the end of the latest instalment of the adventure, sorry it’s been quite so epic. Hopefully the pictures are nice to look at even if you skip the words 😉 I hope get another post up soon covering my adventures in Barcelona and the plan for the next stage… but for now it’s time to head out for more exploring 🙂