Le fruits de la mare

Little town up the road Cancale. Tourist haven on weekend in fine weather. But in the rain only the locals.
Oysters. From the farm 4 Euro per dozen.
A dozen now, sitting on the steps of the bay. 2 dozen packed up for later on back at the Manoir with the local cheese and cider.

The oyster stand at Cancale.

Yummy. 12 is not really enough.

24 more at home.

The oyster fields of Cancale. At low tide the tractors drive out to work them. At high tide they are under metres of water. If you click and enlarge the picture you'll see the tractors.

Servon

Staying in le petit Manoir at Servon. 

Servon. 

 A tiny village a few km from le Mont San Michel. It's an organic dairy farm and the cherries are in season. Living off cider and cheese and cherries. All made onsite. 

The bay of Mt St Michel has tides of 20 metres. When the tide is out the sheep graze on the salty grasses. 

The sheep are then served at local restaurants as "pre salted lamb" and it tastes like nothing else.

Brilliant riding and running on tiny meandering roads through farms and churches. All with the magnificent abbey of Mont St Michel as a backdrop.

The tide comes in as a wave.

Pleasant morning ride in Bretagne

The undisputed star of the show. The magnificent Abbey of St Michel.

Otherwise known to all around here as le'abbeye.

This has now gone to number 2 on M's list of awesome places in the world. It pushed Reims cathedral and the Aya Sophia to 3rd and 4th.

The view from our Manoir. Le Abbey is only 8 km down the road. A quick run or even quicker ride.

#lovingbretagne

Le petit Manoir from the cherry trees.

Au revoir Pyrénées

Last day. Last ride for M. Last run for T. T picked up M from down the road after the big ascent and bigger descent. Then off all the way north to Bretagne.

Wild animals distracting M from the task at hand, which was climbing 14 km at average grade of 8%.

A few years back this was a barn for the sheep owned by the sheep farmer. Now it's an airbnb owned by the artisan sheep cheese maker. Same guy. 

Classique tour de France mountain hairpins. If the average grade of the next km is 9% and the first 500 m is flat. Then how steep is the last 500.?

Pyrenees Adventures: Pont du Espagne to Lac Gaube

Un autre jour dans la belle Pyrénées!

Woke to grey mist and rain down here at the Grand Hotel.
Quick coffee on the Aero press and into the car for the drive up the hill.
At 1100 metres we left the cloud and arrived in the clear golden sunlight with majestic white peaks pushing up into the clear and still blue sky.
Up past the last 180 degree switchback that can handle a tour bus. Over the bridge to Spain and up again.
We arrived in an empty carpark. Just us and a lone mountain biker.
M waved to the cyclist and clapped his hands to let him know that someone respected the epic climb he had made. The cyclist smiled, and then collapsed into a patch of sun in the green meadow.

Apparently if we follow the track we will come to a lake.

This is where the track begins. Birdsong. The ringing of sheep bells, and the bubbling of the stream in the valley.

Yep. At 1800 Metres. Looks like a lake. 

I wonder what it looks like from another 200 metres up?

If we keep walking to the top of that waterfall.... I'm sure we'll get a great view. Puff puff. Hard to breathe normally when you are climbing at close to 2000 m. Effort required.

Almost there. Not much further.

Let's stop at 2000 metres and just enjoy the view shall we? Hey! Isn't that the lake we passed earlier this morning?

Maybe we can picnic in the meadow we passed at 1950 m? I'm tired.

Alpine meadow @ 2000 metres. Springtime. Above the lake. Perfect place for a picnic.

Now home before the storm sets in.

Pyrenees Adventures: Cirque de Gavarnie

After the previous day's ride up col du Tourmalet M wasn't sure if the legs would be up to another hike at 1800 metres across icy terraces to see more spectacular sights that the Pyrenees place before you in whatever direction you look.
"Well all one has to do is begin" said always inspirational T.
So begin we did.
8 km along a steep icy cliff (T had the hikers pole) and then down into the cirque and 4 km back along the easy valley floor.

The day began with a sunny path. The sound of birds and cowbells and the tinkling of many Brooks.

Slowly the massive wall of rock that is the cirque began to appear.

We dropped about 200m to the last chateau on the trail. Hopefully they would serve us cheap good coffee. We were wrong. It was expensive and tasted like coffee should never taste. But the view was great. The pleasant sound of tinkling brooks was now replaced by thunderous roaring of a multitude of water falls .

M tried to get a wide shot to show the 1500 m drop from the top and the 800 m wide cirque. Pictures don't really do it. The scale was massive. The sound was reverberating. Storms were forecast so we decided to leave and head back down.

Couldn't resist one last peek from the village. 

#lovingthepyrenees

Pyrenees Adventures. Col du Tourmalet.

Beautiful 1903 stone villa has become our new home. We originally booked for 1 night but keep extending it. Maybe we won't ever leave. Here is the view from our dining table. We even have church bells on the hour.

This is our base for walking and riding for the next while. We came so that M could tick the Col du Tourmalet of the list. The legendary high pass of tour de France fame.

Tick. A fantastic day to be at 2100 Metres. 20 km uphill, average grade 7% final km at 11%.

Switchbacks a plenty. M though he had run out of words to describe this region. He hadn't. A new word came to mind at about 75% into the ride. "Dizzying". Here are the pics.

Banana break.

Only halfway. Gel break.

Yay for M.

Yay for support team arriving only minutes later.

Support car halfway back down. A cafe here would be nice. 

Pyrenees adventures. Odessa Valley

20 km 6 hours 2500m climb. No words.

Teruel.

One of a kind. Wish we could have stayed longer. Excellent examples of mudejar architecture. Mudejar is the name of Muslims who chose to stay on after the reconquest of Spain in 14th century. Craftsmanship was unparalleled so they had constant employment building. So most of the important buildings in town are of a very unique arabic style. There is a huge cathedral dedicated to Mary (who else) built in beautiful arabic style. Right down to the decorations on the altar. Stunning.
Teruel is also home to the mausoleum of the two lovers. (Look up the story of the Teruel Lovers.) 8th century.
We got to see the tomb and remains housed in a beautiful marble casket in a glorious room of a fantastic building in an enchanting town.
I would return again. (Also a hotspot of modernista architecture around 1910)

Church of Mary in Arabic style.

Another view.

Nice to see another cult in town apart from the cult of Mary. The cult of the bull.

Exquisite detail of the two lovers hands. Note they don't touch. The church forbade it.

Their remains lie within.

Exterior of the mausoleum.

An arabic Christian church. Only in Teruel.

One of the many beautiful towers in Teruel.

Posada Real de Santa Maria.

Not on the map. Off the back roads. Rural. Small. Empty.
But in the small hotel is a kitchen that serves amazingly good paella (pie-yah)
The chef had won the prestigious international paella competition twice.
M had paella Valenciana. (Rabbit with broad beans and snails)
T had the paella marisco. (Prawns and crab)
Both really yummy. Both completed with the remnants mopped up with bread.
Washed down with a bottle of local cava.
Apart from award winning paella, the hotel also provides rooms. Handy when it's 11pm and you have a full belly and a bottle of cava under the belt. (And you are 70 km from any other town)
Excellent rooms. Clean and comfy. Breakfast included.
Next morning before heading to Terual M took a ride to the next town whilst T ran to some old windmills on the hill behind town.
A worthwhile trip. It also confirmed that the Paella that we both enjoy cooking at home is up with the best.

No one at home except us and a green tractor. Strange walking around a town when it feels like you are the last ones alive on 

earth.

The most recent paella award displayed proudly on the wall.

I rarely stop on a ride to take a photo. Usually just head down and ride. However I couldn't pass up the poppy fields flowing irridescently in a glimpse of morning sun. Making time to stop and smell the poppies. On some back road in Spain somewhere, far from everything on a map.

Granada.

Capital of the beautiful Andalusia region.
Home of the Alhambra.

We were very fortunate to get tickets to Alhambra. We were able to get two tickets for the Monday morning session. These tickets are booked out months in advance, so we bought them and made our way to Granada. Then it was up before the sun and a 4 km walk to the meeting point.

Click here to read about the Alhambra

Reflection in the pool. Spring is a wonderful time to be in the gardens. 

View of Granada through a beautiful portico at Alhambra. 

View through the beautiful gardens of the Alhambra.

The Sierra Nevada mountains Granada.