Three days in Barcelona

We have been in Barcelona since Sunday afternoon. After the quiet of Mallorca, the big city bustle takes some adjustment. It has rained steadily for two days, but we still have managed to walk around Barcelona to observe the architecture. Almost every apartment has a balcony of some sort to look out on the street or interior courtyard. It is also the city of modernism, and has many houses and buildings designed by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi. Below is a pic of La Pedrara Caixa de Catalunya, an apartment house designed by Gaudi.









And we have walked, and walked, and walked again, seeing incredibly detailed buildings and tapas bars everywhere. It seems that all of Barcelona eats tapas. Tapas are “small snacks”. Some might seem like an hor d’oerve with bread and/or cheese and some meat or olives. Others could be a pudding or yogurt with some fruit. And others could only be considered a dessert, made with ice cream, chocolate or cheesecake. We sampled them all! Here we are the first nite waiting for our tapas.






Not everyone in Barcelona eats out all the time. We visited two markets with an abundance of fresh foods of every description. The few pics below can't describe all the fresh items available.

Barcelona is also a city of motor scooters and bikes. The city has a network of bikes to borrow at various locations. Using a card, a bike is unlocked from a rack and then locked into another rack near your destination. We saw a maintenance truck today taking some of these bikes on a trailer. We imagine from time to time they have to rebalance the system to get more bikes to the places of high demand.

We head home tomorrow (Wednesday, 5th May). Hope you enjoyed our biking and cultural adventures!

Ken and Kathie

The rain in Spain falls…also in Mallorca

We had a deadline today (Saturday) to get our bikes ready to turn in by 4:30. We also awoke to a threatening sky. Considering this is our ninth day here, this is the only hint of rain we’ve had. We opted to stay close to Alcudia with a plan for a quick return in the event of heavy rain. Familiar roads were our choice. We rode up the coast to Porto Pollentia and turned inland towards Pollenca (Po yent sa). There are three ways out of Pollenca and we chose the one to the sea, to Cala Sant Vincenc. We encountered a few sprinkles on the way up the coast and a few more near Pollenca, but decided to press on. And it was worth the trip.

Cala Sant Vincenc sits in a cove on the north shore of Mallorca and is a very quiet community, without the kitsch of shops hawking beach wear, as on the main strip in Alcudia. It's very quiet, just a few hotels, cafes and an incredibly beautiful bay set deep between two cliffs. We saw a few snorkelers coming out of the blue water as we rode in. It would be perfect place to do………….nothing.
As soon as we began to soak up the view, the sun pushed away the fog and rain and we got a clear view of the bay. Our coffee con leche and tea helped us prolong the stay to enjoy the view. We are soaking up the sunshine below (Ken took the pic)






After refreshments we just headed back to Alcudia and met another party from our group on the road out to this beautiful spot. Not too many miles today, but a perfect way to remember the beauty of the sea which also makes up so much of the character of this island.

On to Barcelona tomorrow - check back for more updates.

Stats for today: 29 miles and 388 feet of climbing

A ride to Orient

We received some sad news today…..the rental company will pick up our bikes tomorrow at 4:30 pm!! But that is tomorrow’s worry, today we had a great ride to another peak on the island. We climbed to Orient, in the mountainous area in the northwest part of the island. The town is very small, but around it are farms which are part of the agrotourism movement. People come to stay to experience a working farm. The pic shows how the fields are neatly terraced all over this mountainous island.

Some of the towns in the central valley are now familiar friends: Sa Pobla, Buger, Campanet and Selva. Today’s ride took us further west towards Palma and we continued past Selva to Lloset (Yo-set) and then on to Alaro. Café con leche (coffee with milk) in Alaro renewed us as we had already begun to climb into the Serra de Tramuntana (mountains) at Selva. The climb to Orient really begins with a nice view through two very prominent and large peaks. We climb through the valley between those peaks swinging gradually west on the climb. Play the video at the end of today's post to get a perspective on the start of the climb.

At Alaro, we turned directly north, into the mountains for a 5.5km (3.4mi) 5.1% climb to Col de Orient. The major climb took us to the peak and then we had another 2km of gradual rolling descent into Orient where we replenished on cold water and cake. Today’s major climb was actually quite easy compared to some of the others we have done. We are hoping that our legs are in better shape now in our 6th day of riding. We were actually surprised when we checked the altitude gain on the GPS and it exceeded 3,000 feet for today. The pics show the group at the summit of Col de Orient and the profile shows the area where we rode today. (forgive the angle on the group pic, the fence post used to rest the camera for the timer shot had an angle at the top!)



The ride back simply retraced our steps and the climb up from Alaro to Orient became a fabulous descent. The road was smooth and the switchbacks were few. We had a very good line of sight the whole way down.

We simply reversed our route to return to Alcudia with an aggressive 31km/hr (19mph) pace for the last 10km (6.2mi) back through the nature preserve which is to the east of the Alcudia resort area. Dinner was needed and well deserved!

Stats for today: 63 miles and 3067 feet of climbing!

Lluc monastery and some hills

We broke into two groups today and our group rode to the monastery at Lluc (“Yook”). This monastery is the spiritual center of Mallorca and has been a place of pilgrimage for over 800 years. It houses a statue of the Virgin which was found in a cave by an Arab shepherd boy who converted to Christianity. The monks built a chapel to house the statue and the monastery is constructed around that original building. These pics show the original church and one of the modern buildings. The view of the valley (pic below) from the monastery was awesome.

We had another perfect day for the ride today. A beautiful ride up the coast to Porto Pollentia and then inland on a familiar road to Pollenca. The sign indicated 20km (12 mi) to Lluc. At the 5km marker there was another sign informing us of a 7.7km (4.6 mi) hill with a 5.5% grade! Once we finished that climb, the rest was rolling uphill with a 2km (1.2 mi) descent to the monastery where we had lunch. The pics show the road to Lluc and the summit marking at Coll de Femenia. We spent about an hour touring this still active monastery and then began a 2km ascent up to Coll de sa Bataia which set us up for a glorious, but very steep, 6km (3.6 mi) descent to Caimari. We think it’s good to have the climb at the beginning of the ride and the downhill on the way home! And after yesterday’s taxi and bus rides, our legs were really in shape for this one. Here we are together at the monastery at Lluc.

After a short ride to Selva, we picked up a bicycle route to Campanet. Though narrow, these side roads are absolutely perfect for cycling. This route was 4.8km (2.9 mi) and we only saw a few cars. The roads pass farms and have the stone walls at the sides with livestock in the fields. Groves of olive trees were abundant today, as well as many fields full of sheep and goats. By this time we needed an excuse to use the facilities, so a coffee stop was in order and the café con leche was a great refresher for Ken and Dana. The pics below show the town square in Campanet and Dana enjoying her coffee and Kathie her Coke. Campanet is in the central valley of Mallorca with the Serra de Tramuntana Mountains to the north and the main highway across the island runs through this valley.

We rode just a few km to Buger, another 4km to the north side of Sa Pobla and picked up the main highway back to Alcudia.

Stats for today: 49 miles and 2452 feet of climbing

To market, to market...and old town Alcudia

We visited the market today in Sineu. We took a taxi over to save our legs for tomorrow’s mega ride to Sa Calobra. The market is purported to be the longest continuous running market in the world, since it started in 1306.. Every Wednesday locals have brought their cheese, hams, livestock, and just about everything else to the center of the city of Sineu to be sold or traded. And now, many non-locals have also started to populate every nook and cranny of the Sineu centrum selling items like farm implements and shawls from Kashmir (Pashmina). You could taste your way through the market, with bits of cheese and cured meats offered as samples. Mallorcan linens, jewelry, pottery, and hand crafted knives were common. And the fruits, olives, onions and peppers seemed to be everywhere.

After a lunch our taxi returned us to the hotel and we hopped on a bus to go to old town Alcudia. We saw this briefly yesterday, but had more time to explore without our bicycles. We walked around the city inside the 14th century wall, and did part of the walk on the ramparts on top of the wall. During lunch, we snacked on tapas and coffee. The tapas snacks included goat cheese with blueberries, octopus, anchovies and olives, jamon (thinly sliced Spanish ham similar to prosciutto) on bread with olive oil. A quick bus ride home and another great dinner at Ivory Playa and we are ready for bed and a significant ride tomorrow.

Stats for today: 2 taxi rides and 2 bus rides

Rest day……….well sort of

Today we took a leisurely ride up the coast to Alcudia proper and then turned inland to Pollenca (Po ‘yent sa). Our brief stop in this town earlier made us want to come back and explore. And, it was a perfect way to give our legs a breather, since it is a gentle ride from here, only 10 miles each way.

This day we walked up to El Calvari Chapel at the top of the 365 steps, carrying our bikes. The picture to the left shows one of the houses alongside the steps on the way up to the chapel. The picture below is of Ken coming up the steps.
The view of the city and valley below were awesome. By chance, we were greeted at the top by the caretaker, who spoke little English- but also by the neighbor on the other side of the chapel. He grew up in Lynchburg, VA before moving back to Spain several years ago, the land of his father. His command of English gave us a great insight into the area. He pointed out the Roman bridge far below, one of the last remaining Roman era artifacts in Pollenca. He also told us about the Roman ruins recently excavated in the old town part of Alcudia. We were able to stop there on the ride back to our hotel.
Lunch in Pollenca was the traditional Pa Amb Oli. This is thinly sliced Spanish ham (think of prosciutto), with olive oil and cheese on crusted bread. We browsed the shops viewing some beautiful pottery and jewelry before the shops closed for siesta. Siesta is taken very seriously, nothing was reopening until well after 4:30 in the afternoon, having been closed since about noon. Some cafes stay open for snacks/drinks and we were able to get a cold drink before getting back on our bikes to return to Alcudia.

The oldest part of Alcudia is surrounded by a 14th century wall. It was settled by the Phoenicians and later conquered by Rome. We walked around the wall, which still surrounds the city and were able to walk on top of some areas which are enabled by stairs to get a better perspective of the city and Bay of Pollenca beyond the city.

We headed back to our hotel for our usual wonderful dinner with the rest of the group and took a nice walk afterwards toward the restaurant district to the south of our hotel.

Stats for today: 22 miles, 329 feet of climbing (almost nothing- compared to the last three days! But a well deserved rest day for our legs.)

Blood, sweat and non-potable water....

We rode to Randa today, or more precisely the Santuaria de Ntra. Sra.de Cura at the top of one of the highest points in Mallorca. The radar and other equipment for the Palma airport are located at the top. What attracts the cyclists is the café in this former church/convent and, of course the view of almost the entire island (shown on the left). With the vantage point comes the climb, 5.4km of nonstop 6% grade. Most of our altitude gain today was from this climb. It almost did us in, but the view and the snacks at the top were great. Fortunately, the return was pretty much all downhill from the top of Randa.

Two pics of the church follow:

And after we filled our water bottles, we found the water was non-potable! We did drink some, but are OK so far. Our ride to Algaida was pressured to find a supermercado (supermarket) where we bought 7 liters of bottled water to rinse and replenish our bottles. The happy re-watered team is shown below (Ken took the pic).

This was not an easy day and the group broke into three parts, as this ride was the most challenging yet. It was planned to be a metric century (63 mi), but went a little longer. A group of three reached the top first, and then our group, but we got lost in Montuiri at least three times in 15 minutes. So much for European charm of small streets which all look alike! On the way back we pressed through Algaida going the wrong way through the entire town on a one-way street- but we didn’t get lost. The crew in an intense map consultation is shown below as we try to find the way out of Montuiri.


The roads are lined with stone walls, sheep in the fields, and small farms everywhere. Fields full of artichokes, olive tree orchards, potatoes, lettuce, and onions were to be seen everywhere. Some plants are already up and growing, but they are tilling and planting the second crop. We continue to have delicious buffet meals here at Ivory Playa resort and we feel we have earned them!

And the blood? A couple of minor scrapes against some walls, but no worries.

It was a very warm and sunny day and beautiful for riding. We are all getting plenty of sun.

Stats for today: 72 miles and 3073 feet of climbing