Another ride day! Somewhat surprisingly, it was sunny all day - just as the forecast had predicted. Since I had arrived in Girona after sundown, I spent the morning exploring the historic Jewish quarter, a narrow, winding maze of 3-5 story tall wall-like dwellings. Large, iron street lamps hung off the walls, wide and low arches gave a unique mediaeval feel. In fact, several scenes of Game of Thrones was filmed here.

Since leaving Barcelona and making my way through Catalonia, I’ve noticed the language change, both in writing and in speech. Sometimes it can be subtle but Catalonians are proud to be their own and I’ve noticed it in the graffiti, road signs, and grocery stores. At first signage included Catalonian, then it became the primary, then it became exclusive. From what I can hear, it sounds like there is a big French influence, but it’s clear they don’t stand with France either. It’s too bad that I cannot visit Andorra on this trip..

I’ve been fortunate that the hills are very small here. Since leaving Girona just past 2pm, I mostly encountered agricultural land, hay, appears to be the staple. The relatively flat ground and sun is all great but there’s always something to complain about, and today, it was the constant headwind. The kind of steady flow where the birds like to play and float in one spot. I confirmed that it was not just my imagination; on the Windy app it shows that the Pyrenees mountains is a place where air like to move through; it’s basically a wall crossing the bottle neck of the Iberian Peninsula with the Mediterranean on the east and the Atlantic Bay of Biscay on the west. I think a lot more windy days are ahead of me! 

On a good note, my knee appears to be better. Still far from 100% but at least there is no pin when I pedal. I guess the difficulty is to not make the same mistake again. I fear that I will…

The best route I could find today was on Google maps; I tried to export it to my Gaia but it would not work so I decided to try navigating. With airplane mode on and low power mode I navigated using the speech functions in my headphones. I have to say, it was pretty convenient. 30 min on screen and 4:44h of background activity and it burned about 50% of my phone juice. I guess this is why ppl use bike computers, but in a pinch this would work.

Also, google said 2:45h not 4:45…