Yesterday I did yoga again while Colin was out for the morning with the local cycling team.  In the afternoon we drove about an hour south to the village of Bors de Montmoreau to see some of the adult riders participate in a race.

The area is very pretty, as is the village, but nothing was open.  There was a nice-looking bar but even with the extra folks there to see the race it was closed.  I know it’s a French holiday today – being Assumption Day (whatever that is), but it’s also day 2 of a 3-day festival in the town.  I’d think that a local business could make a tidy sum on a day like today, but nooo.

The race consisted of four different groups, leaving at intervals, and following a circuit route 8 or 9 times around.

Partway through the race we relocated from near the start line to about ¾ of the way around.  There was a fairly long hill and some of the riders were suffering pretty badly on the last couple of circuits.  I thought one young fellow was going to collapse – he was making horrible groaning, almost crying noises – but he kept going.  It was really sunny and hot and I felt kind of sorry for the riders.Today was another fairly quiet day for me – I went for a short ride to Mouton via Monpaple – about 16 km in all.

Colin had an appointment in Poitier so I stayed home with Mo – no getting out of the gate for her this time!

Yesterday was a bit lazy for me, although I did do yoga in the morning.  Had delicious BBQ cheese and mushroom burgers for dinner.

This morning was a little more exciting, thanks to little Mo.  Colin and I had removed my bike from the bike rack on the car, then he went out to get the car washed.  As I was getting ready to go out with him when he returned I noticed that I couldn’t see Mo out on the deck.  I called for her and she didn’t respond as she usually does.

I looked out and noticed that the gate was open – I guess I hadn’t actually locked it when I came up the stairs, although I’m sure I pulled it closed.  Mo is very tricky and must have somehow pulled it open and escaped to go look for Colin.

I dropped everything, including my money belt, grabbed Mo’s harness and leash, and dashed out the door and down the stairs.  My first thought was she’d probably gone down to the bar hoping for her usual treat so that’s where I ran to. Of course she didn’t know the bar was closed but I figured that would likely be where she’d gone.

The local market was on in the square across from the bar and Mo wasn’t there either – one of the vendors knows Colin and I’ve met them a few times now.  I made them understand that I was looking for Mo and she asked the other vendors if they’d seen a little Jack Russell – no one had.

I took off next for the campground, as Mo likes to go there also – it’s next to the large field where they have the horse races, as well as the cricket ground she likes to run in.

I ran across the bridge and down to the campground – the fellow there hadn’t seen a little dog, and the delivery guy that was also there gave me a strange look – I was obviously very distressed and they must have thought I was a bit nuts.

I ran back up past the first bar again, calling for Mo and holding the harness and leash, and a car stopped.  The lady driver asked me – in French, but I knew what she meant – was this what I was looking for? And there on her passenger seat, looking happy as hell – was Mo!  I gave a little shriek and ran around and opened the door – Mo seemed very happy to see me and I scooped her up saying over and over merci, thank you, merci, thank you.  The lady told me she’d found her in front of the post office, which is on the main street.

I decided to carry her home rather than put her on the leash as I walked back up to the house.  Partway back I passed two ladies and a gentleman who saw that I had Mo – they had also seen her in front of the post office and had helped catch her and put her in the car.  They were very happy that I had gotten her back.

As I arrived with Mo in my arms back at the house Colin had just gotten home also.  I felt very bad about having left the gate un-latched but he was very non-judgemental and just happy that Mo had been found and was back home.

We drove down to Angouleme and one of the places we went was the campervan dealer – they’re still dicking around about fixing Colin’s campervan.  It’s very frustrating for Colin that the dealer wants the manufacturer to deal with it, but the manufacturer is hundreds of miles away and the insurance won’t pay for the tow there – it’s just been going in a circle and after weeks now nothing has actually been done.

After lunch at home we headed up to the town of Chef-Boutonne so Colin could take care of some more business.  Mo and I sat in a bar across the street to wait – this area also has a large population of older Brits and there was a couple at a table next to us, joined a bit later by 3 or 4 more.  I don’t know what all of the Brits around here and elsewhere in Europe are going to do when Brexit happens – they must be a bit freaked about it.

After Colin finished his business we drove about 1 km to a chateau that is now owned by the town and has a lovely park with a lake – there are nice walking paths and picnic tables, etc.  The chateau itself is being renovated so it looks like they’re trying to keep it from falling apart.

On the way home we passed a farm that had two donkeys and a horse in a nice large field- the horse and one of the donkeys seemed like best friends – they were all so cute and happy looking.

Had lovely lamb chops and roasted potatoes for dinner.  I don’t do much cooking here, but I’m really enjoy the eating!

Got up a bit early so I had time to shower and eat a nice breakfast before tearing down the tent and getting ready to leave.  This was a nice campground – the only sound at night was the creek below me.

We got on the road before 10:00 and ended up going all the way back to Burgos before getting on the motorway north/northeast.  

We stopped in a small town for a coffee, than back on the motorway to the coast at San Sebastian.  Since we were on the toll-highway we didn’t actually go thru any of the towns or cities, which saved a lot of time.

Crossed the (non-existent) border from Spain into France just past Irun, then skirted St. Jean de Luz and Biarritz.  The area around Bordeaux was, as usual, a bit of a bottleneck, but not as bad as the way south had been a couple of weeks ago.

Arrived back ‘home’ to Mansle just before 6:00 and threw a frozen lasagna in the oven before walking down to the bar for a quick glass.  Unfortunately they’re closed for the week for a short vacation – the nerve!

Headed back to the house for dinner and an early evening.  I quite like camping and seeing different places every few days, but it is very nice to sleep in an actual bed, and have a bathroom less than 200 metres away if needed in the middle of the night – ha ha.

 

For the final stage of the race we’re going to see the mountain finish, which is in a National Park on the ugly climb up to Lagunas de Neila.  Rather than sit around camp relaxing we decided to head right up as we could relax just as easily up the mountain – good decision it turned out, although are arrival could have been timed just a bit better.

We were able to drive up almost to the top – seeing only two other vehicles along the way, one of which was police/civil guard.  When we reached a plateau there was a large parking area that had a few dozen cars and campervans and the police had just closed the road that goes to the very top – we missed getting through by 10 minutes or less.

That was ok – I walked up the road to suss it out and ended up not going to the top – I didn’t know how far it was and it was getting very steep.  I didn’t want to come back down to collect my chair or anything else I might want for the afternoon and go all the way back up again.

More and more cars were arriving and starting to fill up the parking area.  We opted to drive back down just a little way so we could be right on the side of the road rather than in the middle of a car park.  We found a suitable spot a couple hundred metres down and pulled in behind two other vehicles, moving to the front of them as there was a bit more room.

Set up the table and chairs and raised the flags, then had a nice lunch and settled in to wait.  Dozens and then hundreds of people and cars kept going by us on their way up, and not all of the cars came back.  When I took a little walk up later I saw that there was another road going down the other side towards to town of Neila and because the parking area was now full they were pulling in on the side of that road going down.

I checked with the civil guard just to make sure which road the race was coming on – we’re on the right one, thank goodness.  An enterprising ice-cream seller was making a killing – the line was 20 or 30 people when I passed by. I’m actually a little surprised there aren’t more food trucks, etc., although many people, like us, have brought picnics.

The young couple we’d seen yesterday at the feeding station walked by and said hi – they saw the flags thus knew it was us.  Also a couple of men stopped and were discussing the flags so Colin started explaining what they all were. They both spoke fairly good english and chatted for a bit –  one of them now lives in Lyon, France.

The first racer came up just before 4:30, and they all straggled by singly or in small groups over the next 20 or 25 minutes.  

As there was apparently no room at the top for the team buses, etc., the riders were coming back down the road after finishing, chatting with each other, as the late comers were still going up.

It was quite confusing, as by then many of the fans that had walked all the way up were now coming down also – kind of chaotic, in fact.  At one point a family was walking down the hill as cars were already passing and a little boy dropped a bidon he’d gotten onto the road – he ran right out in front of an oncoming car to grab it and I screamed ‘Jesus Christ!’ and reached my arm out – which, I know, was useless – while the mother did nothing!  Luckily the car driver was paying attention and slammed on his brakes and the kid wasn’t run over.  The mother did say something to the boy after, but it might have been better if she’d been paying attention earlier.

We took down the flags and followed one of the team cars down the hill and into the town.  Stopped at a large cafe/bar that was fairly packed, so just grabbed a couple of chairs and pulled up to a table of local men and set our drinks down.  We then proceeded to watch the long parade of team cars, motos, buses and fans coming thru the town from the mountain.

As usual I waved and smiled at almost all of them, and almost all waved or honked back – it’s the same everywhere – if you’re happy and friendly to strangers they’ll be nice back even if they don’t have a clue who you are.

 

Packed up our tents, had a cafe latte at the campground’s cafe, then said goodbye to Burgos.  The start of today’s stage is very close – only about 14 km or so at the beautiful old Monasterio San Pedro de Cardera.  El Cid is pretty big around this whole area – the monastery has a huge sculpture of him on his horse above the main door, although he’s missing most of his sword arm and part of his face.

The moto guys were having a meeting next to the statue of Christ, co-ordinating their race plans and duties, and the caterers were hanging catered lunch bags on the motorbikes (all of which are extremely nice-looking BMW’s).

I saw a monk come out the main door and a few VIP type people went with him to a smaller door on the left side – I figured they were getting a private tour so scurried over to sneak in behind them but the heavy iron door slammed shut just before I got there – rats.  

Then the music started – the first song to blast out of the speakers was an AC-DC tune – at least it wasn’t Highway to Hell.

The motoriders, then the ‘civil guards’ got their group photos taken, then the teams started arriving to be introduced to the crowd and sign in.

We left near the end of the team signings rather than watch as they actually started to race.  As we were passing the team cars and buses that were parked all along the road one of the riders was paying some attention to Mo so we asked if he could score us a bidon or something – he pointed to another guy and said that he’d give us something.  

When we asked the other guy he said no, he couldn’t give us anything so I piped up ‘but I’m from Canada’ and turned around to show him the maple leaf that’s now pinned to my small backpack.  The guy then said ‘oh – well then ok – here’s a musette (feed bag) for you – alright?’.

We barely made it out of the next town as the race was about to come thru and the road we wanted to take was blocked.  We went down a side road just before it and got thru a back way onto the small highway we wanted that went the opposite direction that the race was taking.

We stopped just after the small town of Villabilla de Gumiel, where the people don’t seem too concerned about walking in the middle of the road even when cars are coming.  We pulled over in a nice flat area where hay had just been cut and was just before the end of the ‘feed zone’.

The only other car that joined us was a nice young Spanish couple that we chatted with – the guy especially seems keen on the cycling races, and they are from the Basque so were quite interested that we had just been there and seen the San Sebastian Classic.  Once again didn’t get any bidons or anything but the musette we got earlier made up for that.

Not too far from our next camping destination we we both feeling tired from the sun earlier so stopped for a refreshing beverage in the village of Palacios de la Sierra.  The small bar was cool inside so for once we didn’t choose an outside table. When we ordered a second round told us they were closing, but we could sit outside and drink if we wished, so we ended up at the outside table anyway.

The campground just outside Quintanar de la Sierra was easy to find and we setup next to a creek/river.  There are lots of tents here and only a few campervans. The wi-fi reception sucks so no online news or blog posting for me.

Drove back into the town to find a supermarket, then settled in for bacon and eggs dinner.

The day started out fairly chilly, and then just got worse – and I don’t mean the weather.  I was putting in a new pair of contacts and the right one went in nice and easy, but the package of the left one was a bit hard to open, which was unusual.  As soon as I rinsed it with saline and put it in my eye it immediately started to burn and sting like mad. I ripped it out and tossed it – I don’t really know where – and closed my eye tightly.  I cried and cried it burned so bad and every time I opened the left eye it started burning again – I wondered briefly if I’d blinded it.

Because of the crying my nose was running so I took out my nose-ring so I could blow it and the nose ring fell on the floor  – so there I was squint-eyed crying and on my hands and knees patting the bathroom floor trying to locate my favourite nose-ring.  No luck – well at least the day can only get better, I thought – right?

I gave up on the contacts and resorted to glasses for the day.  I actually wore my long pants in the car on our way to today’s stage, but brought a change of clothes with me just in case.  It was about a 50 minute drive north of Burgos to the town of Sedano.

As we entered the village we were directed to a parking lot on the left – it was actually the local football field.  By then it was warm enough to change into my ‘rah rah’ skirt, as Colin calls it. It’s actually an LPGA skirt with built-in shorts underneath and is very comfortable to wear.  

I’m experiencing what I would call a ‘behind the scenes’ start of a stage for the first time – all of the buses and team cars began to arrive, then the riders all signed-in as each of the teams were presented – and it’s a whole different atmosphere.  Once the race is actually on the riders are all very intense and this was just the opposite.

The village isn’t that large so the parking and unloading of all of the buses wasn’t easy and had to be well organized.  

There were a lot of people there, and it was much more relaxed than any of the other races I’ve been to so far.  All of the riders are smiling and chatting, signing autographs for kids, posing for photos, etc.

Right after all the teams had signed in and been presented a local kids’ group did a couple of traditional dances all dressed up in costume – or rather, a guy played a flute-type thing and another played a snare drum and most of the kids kind of stood in one spot and swayed a bit while the two oldest ones danced a bit.  One little fellow looked quite put out with the whole thing, but he was so cute.

The riders rolled out right on time at 12:49, then we went and asked some locals where the bar was – right across the street and around the corner.  We went thru the inside and out to the back patio, then I went in to order. There wasn’t really a line, and the 3 servers were working furiously to try to keep up.  I had some good laughs with the old fellow beside me – one lady got her daughter to stand at the counter hoping she’d get faster service than us, but we weren’t having that.  For once I had patience and just went with it.

 

Another fairly windy night, but no rain.  Had a nice breakfast of leftover paella, then went for another ride to the east.  Headed up into the national park that’s across the road, although most of the trails were more suited to mountain bikes so I couldn’t go on many of them.

The part of today’s stage we’re heading to first is the ‘feeding station’ just outside the town of Sotopalacios, which is only about a 14 km drive from the campground.  We got a really good place to park and set up the table and chairs, as well as my umbrella sunshade. Even though once again it’s not so blistering hot out the sun isn’t good for my skin – I’m still putting the cortizone cream on the back of my neck and my arms – especially the two mosquito bites I got a couple of weeks ago that got infected, or maybe they were just extra irritated by the sun.  While waiting we ate a nice lunch of more of the leftover paella – still tasty.  

Even though we were in a good spot we didn’t score any bidons or musettes (water/juice bottles and food bags), but that was ok.  As soon as the last rider and all of the support vehicles had passed we sped away to get to the finish at Castrojeriz.

We found a good parking space outside the local swimming pool and walked a short way to the finish area.   We picked a spot about 100 metres before the finish.  

The small breakaway group had been caught and the peloton blew by in a sprint finish.

We waited and watched part of the podium presentations before heading to a cafe/bar in the village to have a beverage before hitting the road back to the campground.  It had a lovely backyard area and we sat under the trees surrounded by bushes, flowers, fellow cycling fans, and locals.

There was a terrific storm during the night – some rain but mostly wind.  The tent held up nicely and nothing inside got wet.

Went for a nice little bike ride after breakfast – followed the path that leads east from the campground, then circled a bit north towards the river.  There are many paths, large and paved, as well as small dirt ones. The one that goes west near the river is excellent – I believe it goes all the way into the old city but I didn’t follow it that far, turning instead back towards the campground.  I did see many small tree branches and one very large one brought down by the storm in the night.

Upon returning I changed, packed a few things in my backpack and we headed north to Poza de la Sal –  it ended up being the same road we had come south along into Burgos on Sunday. We intended to stop and have a coffee before heading to the mountain summit that the first day of the Vuelta de Burgos race will be going thru but couldn’t find an open cafe or anything.

We had a heck of a time trying to find the right road for the race – there were no orange arrows in the town yet but we knew they were coming thru.  Also, the road number on the map and the road number from the race website were different, but we figured it out anyway after a couple of false starts.

The climb to the summit won’t be fun for the racers, but at least it isn’t quite as hot as it’s been for the last few days.  There’s a fairly large flat area at the top, and there are wind turbines all over the place.

Also a couple of combines harvesting grain and blowing it into a large pile on one side of the big ‘parking’ area.  There’s a statue of a vulture on top of a tall triangular base that has writing about a Dr. ‘Somebody’ but I’m not sure what it was about – maybe a scientist of some sort that saved the vultures around here from extinction or something.

I went for a walk along one of the trails and it just went down and down, eventually turning a corner and opening up onto a great view of the wide valley below, although it was quite hazy.

The banner marking the summit was already there when we arrived, and then the line painters came.  I walked over and looked in the back of their truck and saw that they had boxes full of orange arrows so I asked if I could have one.  They said they didn’t speak English so I just pointed at the box – they gave me one and I was pretty happy. As I walked across the road back to the car one of the guys came after me and handed me several more – I’m getting a collection!

Even though the temperature isn’t as high as it’s been it was pretty hot – I had my hat on to protect the tops of my ears and managed to set the umbrella up to shade my body.  The white cotton shirt is getting pretty ragged but protects my arms ⅔ of the way down.

A very nice older English couple pulled up and we chatted with them for awhile – Joy and John, who know a bit about the cycling races, but had happened along not knowing the race was coming thru.  They didn’t stay to watch, but were going down into Poza to try to get a coffee – we wished them luck.

There’s not as much fanfare announcing the arrival of the racers as there’s been at other races – especially the TDF – but we still knew when they were coming.  Several motos and some team cars, then a breakaway of six or so, followed about 3 minutes later by the peloton. Once again, even though it’s the end of a long fairly steep climb they all seemed to be going so fast.

Once they’d all passed we took down the flags and packed up – rather than going back to Burgos the way we’d come we followed to route of the stage for a bit and took a different way home to the campground.

For dinner we decided to wait for the paella – if you want the seafood one you have to order it for two people, and it takes about an hour – it was worth the wait.  We got ours to go and ate it at our campsite – well, part of it, as it could easily have fed four or more. It was excellent, having prawns, langoustine, crab, mussels, tiny clams – all just delicious – went to bed very stuffed.

 

Once again I realized that the monks at the monastery nearby just don’t know how to count – this morning it was 89 bells for 8:00 – maybe they’re all mostly deaf and only hear every 10th one or something.

Finally did yoga again for the first time in many days – my hips and lower back feel ever so much better.  The campground is right on the southeast edge of the city, and everything past it is parkland with lots of beautiful looking bike trails that I’ll have to explore later.  Burgos is a big stop on the Camino de Santiago trail and I’m sure many of the hikers make a visit to the cathedral in the old city.

We headed the few km into the old city to find the tourist office and hopefully get help there like we did at the one in Hernani.  Parked in an underground lot near the cathedral and walked around a bit – even with a map it took us awhile to find the tourist info office, which was almost hidden back from the square behind some construction fencing.

The lady tried her best to be helpful, but didn’t have a clue what the Vuelta de Burgos even was, let alone have any info on it.  They were out of detailed maps of the area so she ended up giving us six seperate ones as well as a couple of nice brochures of things to see and do.  Burgos is not only the major city but also the name of the whole area.

The Cathedral of Burgos is quite impressive, if not really my taste.  In 3 years time it will be celebrating is 800th anniversary!

The whole old part of the city is just beautiful, with lots of pedestrian-only roads and many trees and parks lined with statues.  

There is a large statue of El Cid on his horse right as you come off the bridge across the river into the old city.

There are also lots and lots of outdoor cafes and tapas bars.  

We stopped at one for a coffee, and I ordered a tostada with Iberian ham, tomatoes and olive oil.  It was very tasty, but so large I ended up splitting it with Colin. The cafe late was delicious (once I put some honey in it – still have a mini-jar that I carry in my camera case).

Back at the campground we sorted out where we want to be on each of the five days of racing the Vuelta a Burgos.  The maps we got from the info place were actually fairly helpful, as I looked up the official site on my ipad while we found the places on the maps we’d gotten and decided where we want to be for each stage.

After that we went shopping for a few things at Decathlon – an outdoor store that’s all over Europe.  I picked out some great sandals to replace the old flip-flops I got last summer in Angoleme – they were literally falling apart and were becoming dangerous to walk in as I kept getting tripped up by the flapping right one.

Went down to the cafe/bar again for dinner and asked immediately about the paella – again they said it would be available at 8:30.  Colin decided he wanted the croquettes again, so I went in to make sure I could get the paella and was told that if it was only for one person I could have it at 7:30 instead of 8:30, which sounded great.  Near to 7:30 I went to order Colin’s croquettes and my paella and was told that I could only have the paella if I was in the indoor restaurant – I really wish they could give a person all of the information at the same time.  They knew I was outside from the beginning and could have told me that rather than making me wait an hour and then providing the essential missing piece of information.

Once again, then, I got the calamari – you also have to ask for knife, fork, condiments, etc as they seem to think you don’t need them unless you ask for them I guess.

 

In no real hurry to leave we had a nice cup of tea and breakfast before tearing down our tents and packing up the car.  We were on the road by about 10:45 heading west along the coast.

The drive was beautiful – along the Atlantic thru lovely little towns, all with gorgeous beaches starting with Zarautz, Getaria, Zumaia, Deba and Ondarroa.

We took all smaller, slower roads and it was so worth it – hardly any traffic, and right thru the middle of so many villages that the motor-ways completely bypass.

As we turned south and left the coast the terrain started to change.  We first went up and over the mountains, which were still green and down the other side where it was much drier and browner, although still very beautiful.

We had already picked the campground in Burgos that we were heading for so Miss GPS took us right there.  We checked in and were told we could pick any place we wanted in the ‘orange areas’ on the map they gave us.  We looked at two places but weren’t that thrilled with them so chose a third and set up the tents.

We went down to the campground’s cafe/bar for dinner and a drink.  The outdoor area was pretty much full and it had cooled down enough to be fairly pleasant.  There wasn’t a menu – just a few things on a blackboard – we were both interested in the paella, but found out when we went to order that we’d have to wait until 8:30.  Since we were both fairly hungry we ordered calamari, croquettes and fries instead and shared them between us – and Mo, of course.

I was still awake at midnight when the bells in the nearby monastery chimed – 66 times!