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Thu Aug 2 2007: Andorra |
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We're out of Spain!
Road leading out of Valencia in the AM
Started the day around 6:30AM, out on the road by 7:30AM. The ride out of Valencia was uneventful. Hit the Autovia for 400 kms towards the central Pyrenees. North of Barcelona, we got off the highway and took some amazing roads up the mountain, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Can you believe this is a highway?
Once off the highway, we got on some smaller roads. We stopped at the side of the road and this old guy stops to chat with us. He wanted to know what country ADV was. LOL! Here he is telling us that there was a tap with drinking water just around the corner.
Parque Natural Del Cadi-Moixero. Excuse the finger on the top edge of the screen.
I've got to look into getting a camera mount for my bike. Then I can shift gears too!
Twisty mountain roads
Over lunch Neda asked me, "Isn't Andorra famous for something? Like sweaters?" LOL!
We had our usual sangria the night before in Valencia. When I looked at the empty jar, I saw a half inch of undissolved sugar in the bottom! No more sangria, chorizos (sausages) and croquettes any more. I am eating like Neda from now on. Just a bit more than she eats though.
This photoshop is courtesy of Chris.
Asshole.
Hard to believe sometimes this is a two-way road. And then a truck comes barreling around the corner and then you believe again...
Contemplating a tunnel
Surveying the road we've just ridden. Oh yeah, and the rest of the scenery
Me taking a picture of Neda taking a picture of me. Somehow a mirror made it's way in between
This is what happens when you miscount the automatic timer on the digital camera.
We took another picture and Neda made it into the frame, but this one is way funnier!
Just chillin'...
Neda is loving the Pyrenees
R1200GS against the Pyrenees
Entering Andorra was like nothing I expected. I knew it was a very popular ski destination in the winter, but I was unprepared for the lines of people trying to get in and out of the country. Getting in wasn't a problem, but we saw the queue leaving the country back to Spain. There were lots of people being pulled from the line for customs inspection. Andorra has no sales tax and is a haven for shoppers from France and Spain who cross the border to buy everything from cigarettes and alcohol, to bigger ticket items like motorcycles and cars. The greater the value, the bigger the savings. When I saw the roads on the map, I thought the small towns lining the main road into Andorra would be quaint little Swiss-like Alpine villages, speciality spas and little places where you could buy obscure coffee beans and the like. What I saw as we crawled at 20 km/h was wall-to-wall commerce. And motorcyclists all over the place. The reason was two-fold: the awesome roads up and down the Pyrenees, but also motorcycle stores! It seemed that one out of every ten storefronts was some kind of motorcycle or moto apparel store.
We made the mistake of stopping at the first one we saw, which was close to the Spanish border. Not a very good one, it was pretty empty inside.
After a few of these wall-to-wall storefront towns, we ducked into a mountain road and had a bit of fun in the twisties. Then back on the main road up to the last town before France, Pas de la Casa, which is also the highest point in the Andorran ski resort, Grandvalira. There is a toll tunnel which goes under the mountain to get to Pas de la Casa, but we opted to actuall go up and down the peak, travelling through the stereotypical "staircase of roads", 90 km/h straights, with the speed limit dropping down to 30 km/h in the hairpin turns, a total of 15 turns going up and down the peak. Why pay to ride in darkness, when you could be doing these instead? As we got to the peak, we were greeted by what looked like fog. It was actually a cloud! The peak is about 7000 feet above sea level. I didn't realize this until later when I was trying to climb the stairs in the hotel to get up to our room and I ran out of breath! It was also cold! Finally! Dipped to about 17 degrees when we reached Pas de la Casa, and actually got to 7 degrees overnight!
Me, bike, winding mountain roads in the background... 'nuff said
I love this shot!
A line of bikers at the peak coming up from Pas de la Casa. Yes, that's a cloud in the background!
U Up amongst the clouds
Trying to take a hairpin while inside a cloud with one hand holding a camera
At Pas to de la Casa, we were greeted with the same kind of storefronts lining the main street. It was around 6PM, so all the stores were closing and shoppers and motorcyclists were all leaving the village en masse. Apparently no one actually stays in Andorra in the off-season. We had trouble finding a hotel that was open, most are closed until the snow starts falling. After walking around the small town (about 5 or 6 main streets), I finally found a small hotel for us to unload our stuff for the night. By the time we got out to dinner, most of the stores were closed, so we resolved to hit as many motorcycle stores tomorrow as we could. We poked our heads into a couple of restaurants and found a curious blend of languages. The official language in Andorra is Catalan, but the majority of the people speaking either French, Spanish or Portuguese. My tongue was confused, speaking a mixture of Spanish and French (Spanch? Or Franish?) at every place we stopped into.
Our hotel. Some of the patrons are not so bright they have to have arrows pointing to where the hotel really is.
Note Neda's bike just makes it outside of the tow-away zone!
Stupid hotel didn't have wi-fi Internet. At least their kiosk had a USB port I could plug my digital camera into and upload some pictures.
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