Cycling The Globe

Distance: 32.9 km
Ride time: 3:23:43
Average: 9.7 km/h
Max speed: 43.9 km/h
Total: 55517 km

33 kilometers after a day in the saddle. Perhaps not that impressive but we had quite the mountain to climb today. The climb started right after leaving our hotel in Andorra la Vella – no such thing is a flat road around here.

Its also pretty hard to get lost. There is only one major road going through the country; downhill towards Spain and uphill towards France.

Since it was a national holiday it seemed like half of the population wes going for a hike in the mountains. Well, with a back yard like this you couldn’t blame them. Therefore we had a bit of traffic to deal with in the beginning of the day, but things quickly got more quiet.

The climb was long but steady, nothing too crazy, and both Manon and I were very much enjoying the challenge. There is just something about climbing mountains that I find very hard to resist. Yes, its challenging, but you get repaid on so many levels. If nothing else, the view is always something special on those climbs.

Skiing is big business in Andorra. It felt kind of wrong to be here in summer, looking up a the empty slopes and ski lift. We quickly decided that we wanted to come back one day in winter as well.

We had enjoyed great weather all day, but near the pass the clouds rolled in. In a few minutes the temperature dropped to 10 degrees and rain began to fall. Time to take our summit photos of success and descend into the skiing village at El Pas de la Casa.

Arriving in the cloud of fog, on a national holiday, in off season, Pas de la Casa felt very much like a ghost town. At an apartment complex we found a phone number on the door and tried our luck. Sure enough, we could rent a whole apartment for a night for a very reasonable price. Since we were both wet and cold that was exactly what we wanted to hear.

Andorra and the Pyrenees is hereby conquered. Tomorrow comes the long downhill into France.