Climbing Mountains On Bread + Jam
Arriving at the La Vega campsite wearing full winter cycling kit I felt a little over dressed for the spring sunshine, even though I was only beginning to feel my fingers and toes after the 16km descent from Puerto de San Glorio. Our priorities were shelter, food and warm showers as we tried to recover from the cycling of the previous two days. – Posted by Justin
Picos De Europa – A Ride In The Park
I caught sight of the Cantabrian mountains as our ferry pulled into Santander, big giant beasts of mountains with snow stuck to them which loomed over the city. While the coast embraced spring, the mountains stayed in view for the first few days as we acclimatised to Spain and headed slowly West towards the Picos de Europa national park. – Posted by Emma
Spanish Easter
There was a real egg shaped chocolate shortage in the lead up to Easter in Spain. No foil wrapped cheap chocolate in sight, no box sets of cartoon themed cups and hollow eggs, no Cadbury creme eggs. It made us start to wonder what countries shared the commercialised traditions that we’d grown up with. New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom – of course. America? Probably. – Posted by Emma
1000 Kilometre Photo
Here is the first milestone photo, taken 10th April 2010 along the coast heading towards a campsite just outside San Sebastian, Spain. – Posted by Emma
Bilbao, Beaches And Bays
We cycled into Bilbao from our hilltop free camp (where we had our first experience of ticks on the trip so far) using the Garmin Dakota GPS for our first serious piece of city navigation – it performed like a charm. Arriving at the Hostel a little early we circled the block before carrying out some tent-drying/wind-sculpture-art-installation outside the Guggenheim. – Posted by Justin
Basque Hospitality
As we set out on a short 40km day towards Tolosa the promise of a comfy bed and spending some time with a Basque family kept our legs happily spinning up the hills. The day was fine, the scenery was rolling hills and Emma’s cafe solo was drunk in a bar with signed Tour de France posters on the wall. – Posted by Justin + Emma
Day Of Food – Spain
We’ve tried to document a typical day’s food intake for two hungry cyclists in Spain. Note we normally wouldn’t have two dinners but this day began with a free camp outside Biescas and ended with an offer of a comfortable bed in Gerbe. – Posted by Emma
Detour To Gerbe
It had already been a pretty good day. Much food shopping to stock up our larder, more downhill than uphill, scenery that included deserted towns and gigantic slabs of rock sticking out of a sky blue river. But as we cycled out of a tiny village called Gerbe, we met Amaia and our day got even better. – Posted by Emma
Cycling The Pyrenees In Spring
Over the last 12 days we have cycled from Tolosa on the edge of the Pyrenees through to Olot and the Coll de Ares pass into France. We haven’t posted much during this time as the cycling, scenery and people we have met along the way have been enthralling us too much. Below are some snapshots of my memories of cycling the length of the Pyrenees on the Spanish side during April. – Posted by Justin
Spain By Numbers
We had 34 days in Spain and we can’t yet say that it was the best country we’ll see on this trip, but it sure beats our rainy exit from the UK. Spain, we’ll miss your chocolate filled croissants, hospitable people and wonderful tarmac (most of the time). – Posted by Emma + Justin










