Google Maps says today’s trip should be 173 miles and take 3.5 hours, an average speed of about 49 mph.
We drove 210 miles and took 9 hours to do it, an average speed of 23 mph.
It wasn’t Google’s fault. At every turn in the road she would say, “We’ve found a shorter route that saves one hour and eight minutes. Would you like to take it?” “No, we selected the scenic route, an alternative that you, google lady, offered us. So shut up already.” Sometimes she’d switch routes without even telling us. We wanted to cross the Pyrenees from the French side to the Spanish side and see the sights. Eventually we put in a way point for Laruns, France, a town along our preferred route. That shut her up. Laruns turned out to be a very worthwhile diversion in its own right.
And what a drive it was. The extra mileage was worth it, even though most of the miles were on twisty, narrow, mountainous, bike and motorcycle infested roads. Photo ops plus a picnic cheese-and-crackers lunch under a shade tree at the summit of our mountain pass accounted for much of the extra time we used.
It’s hard to describe what we saw; we’ll leave it to the pictures and video. Of course, we saw lots of dramatic snow-capped mountains.
When we weren’t viewing mountains, we saw beautiful farm land. The first crop of hay was bailed in the fields and in some cases being hauled on trucks, another cause of delay as the hay trucks wended their way around the sharp curves and even through one-lane village streets. The fields have been mostly plowed and planted. We saw lots of corn shoots maybe six inches out of the ground.
And when we weren’t viewing mountains and farm land we were driving though one quaint town after another. I’d guess most have histories back to the seventeenth century, probably earlier. Again, see the pictures.
Another source of delay: At one point a flock of sheep – a whole bunch – came wandering down the highway. No shepherd, no sheep dog, just sheep. They very carefully stayed on their side of the highway, hardly ever crossing the center line. At another point several horses stood in the middle of the road smelling each other’s behinds. Ah, the pastoral life!
The first part of the journey was in French Basque country. We never saw a sign saying: “You are now leaving Basque country.” Instead, we almost immediately noticed that every house, restaurant, barn and outhouse changed from white with red shutters and trim to a variety of architectural styles and color schemes. I’d say the Basque people are a tightknit community.
We’re now at the Parador de Bielsa. Parador is to Spain as pousada is to Portugal (we stayed in a pousada in Belmonte, Portugal you may recall – or not). This one is 14 km up a narrow mountain valley from Bielsa. Bielsa is 20 km or more up a narrow mountain valley from the previous town. We’re settled in and plan dinner at 8:30 or so.
The last picture in today’s set shows the view out our parador window. Must be a half dozen waterfalls with maybe 500-meter drops. I hope they shut them off at bed time. They make a tremendous racket and I don’t know how we’ll get a wink of sleep.
Tomorrow there’s a three-hour walk from our parador to a small chapel with a side diversion to a waterfall. Maybe we’ll explore the village of Bielsa and other small towns in this area.
Speaking of tomorrow, our daughter Rebecca has given us a challenge on this trip: “Go for 24 hours without taking a picture or shooting a video, without writing a blog entry or even checking email or news. Cold turkey. See what it feels like for the rest of us when we go on vacation and just have fun and enjoy ourselves.”
So that’s it. After tonight’s posting we’re off the air until Tuesday when we’ll arrive and give up our car in Barcelona. I hope we can make it; the temptation to cheat will be strong. But we’ll sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast, take a hike, hug a tree, take a nap, get started on that bottle of port wine we’ve been lugging around for a week, whatever. Maybe read a book? Uh oh, our books on our iDevices. Does that count? Wish us luck!
