Dobleve

I’m back in Granada and Jake is back in the US; we had a great trip as you can see from the earlier posts!

Tale of the tape:

Distance travelled: 842km

Days of riding: 11

Days of rain: 1/2 day

Number of fully functioning cameras: 1 out of 3.

Number of times we had to dismount due to dogs: 1

Number of times Jake sneezed: Uncountable

Number of ibuprofens taken: 3

Number of times the terrain was as flat as we expected: 0

Number of flat tires: 1

Number of times the police pulled us over: 1

Number of closed roads we ended up on: 3

We arrived in Santiago yesterday afternoon after a harder than expected ride from Sanxenxo; there was a strong headwind the whole way that left us feeling sandblasted by the end.
We passed some cute coastal cities along the way, Galicia has an amazing amount of coastline and for us, perfect weather.

The cathedral in Santiago is surrounded by the old part of town which is full of narrow winding streets, many of which have covered sidewalks – I guess not everyone gets the sunny days we’ve had.

We went out to celebrate the end of the trip last night, the nightlife gets started really late so it was a bit of a struggle to stay awake at the end.

We decided to spend another day here in Sanxenxo, the weather, the beach and the lack of desire to wander winery to winery with our bikes fully loaded made it the perfect choice for the day.

We explored the area a bit by bike and visited wineries. There are quite a variety of wineries here, from huge ones, to smaller but very new-world style to just bigger than mom-and-pop.

Tomorrow we’ll head towards Santiago de Compostela, we’re nearing the end of our trip. It’s hard to believe all the places we’ve seen and how different they all seem from “my” Spain in Andalucía.

We got up really early today for a long ride to Pontevedra, this time in a bus. We arrived at the bus station and biked along the coast to Sanxenxo, a great little town. Leaving Asturias we also left the grey cold weather behind; after finding a place to stay for the night we headed to the beach to swim and enjoy the warm and sunny day.
This is the beginning of the wine tour phase of the trip, we’re in the wine region known as Rias Biaxes which primarily makes Albariño, a great white wine for sunny summer days.
No photos of the bus trip today (although a photo of the bus driver yelling at Jake and I this morning about our bike packing would have been priceless), so here’s a few more photos from Gijón.

Shannon, I think that last one would be perfect to warn people about Milo.

Here’s some photos of Sanxenxo from dinner time.

We arrived in Gijón today and heard about the earthquake in Lorca, much closer to my home in Granada than we are currently, scary though and I hope for the best for those in Lorca.

We started the day on a rough footing, I blame the bartender in Llanes, I suspect Jake blames me. The trouble began when I ordered orujo (brandy) and got us each a full 6oz glass last night, in hindsight it does seem weird how the bartender was laughing while pouring.

We got rained on a bit today but had a solid 100k ride and felt better than we should have at the end. The descent into Gijón was beautiful if a little cloudy.

Once there, we explored a bit and then settled into local food – cider and seafood. Wes, you’re going to need to build these cider delivery devices.

Along the way we picked up a safety tip worth passing on – if you are walking along the road with a scythe over your shoulder, do not make sudden turns.