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Sat Aug 4 2007: Central Pyrenees & Côte d'Azur |
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We wake up to a chilly morning on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. The plan is to head towards Lourdes and then double back all along the mountain range, hoping to see more of the amazing scenery that we've experienced yesterday. But first, some maintenance on the oilheads - the affectionate term for our BMW air-cooled boxer-engined motorcycles, so-named because of the oil-filled cylinder heads that stick out on both sides of the bike. Neda's ST seems to burn a lot more oil than my GS, despite it being exactly the same engine. We stop at a gas station to top off both our motorcycles.
If it's good enough for Nicky Hayden...
It's a funny thing gauging what the temperature is going to be like when you set out in the morning. We were decked in our warm longjohns and sweaters at first, but by the time we finished servicing the bikes, it had gotten too warm and we had to undergo another wardrobe change.
Headin' for the hills
On one of the roads, we encountered a couple on BMW GSes like mine. Here I am chasing them down
As the morning wore on, we started to see more and more traffic, first cars, and then bicyclists clogging up the roads. Then we remembered. Today was Saturday. Everyone and their brother-in-law was out enjoying what was turning out to be fantastic weekend weather!
We finally did find a relatively deserted, narrow road that climbed up one of the mountains
Yay! Hairpin!
Top of the hill
View from the top of Estive de Garin (a sign at the top told us where we were)
By the way, Neda says "hi"...
We stop for lunch in a small town in France called Bagnères-de-Bigorre
You know you're back in France, when you order a salad and you get this! WOW!
After lunch, we doubled back east on the French side of the Pyrenees. Almost all the routes I've travelled were culled from a website called http://www.bestbikingroads.com/, which is a fantastic resource for find the best biking roads (duh) in Europe. But I did stray from that site and read about a route on another web page which promised some wonderful sights through the Pyrenees. We took that route back and were very very disappointed. If I can find the web page which gave us this dull, boring route through small, dead villages, I'll try to post it on here as a warning. It did kill this leg of the journey a little, as we got sick of it quickly and hopped on the Autoroute towards the Cote D'Azur.
I wanted to try to make it as far as Marseille for the night, but I did not count on the weekend traffic as well as many accidents on the highway. For the last week, we had been riding during the weekday with experienced commuters who drove well and were mindful of traffic etiquette. Well, it turns out that Europe, like North America, has it's share of weekend drivers who just don't know how to drive. Our progress was impeded by accident upon accident on the highways in France, and by the time we arrived in Marseille, it was quite late.
Neda, getting tired and cranky while stopped on the highway waiting to clear an accident scene
This is where we stayed for the night
We stopped for the evening at a Novatel hotel near the airport. The thinking is that it might be cheaper if we were on the outskirts of the city. That theory was blown to bits, the hotel was expensive, and it wasn't even that nice inside. I've amended my theory to take into account that airport hotels have a captive audience (they have to stay close to the airport), so they can charge an arm and a leg for crap. Lesson learnt...
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