May 18, 2014
Begur
Costa Brava roller coaster
Well, that was fast; we have a new competitor for best restaurant of the trip - Turandot, in Begur.
First though, about the ride. It ended up being seriously more than we had expected - an extra 7 miles, and an extra 1500 feet of climbing. In fact, all three of the rides so far have had more climbing than I had anticipated. Rachael is starting to suspect that I hid the bad news from her when planning this trip. The first stretch of today's coastline was a superb ride, consisting of an endless (actually, I counted 8) series of headlands along a striking coast all the way to Saint Feliu de Guixols. We shared the road with several hundred other cyclists on an organized ride - the earliest ones whizzing past us (we're carrying our luggage, remember) and the later ones poking along at a slower pace not much faster than ours. We kept watching over our shoulders for them all the way to Saint Feliu.
Beyond that we passed through about 10 miles of flat, congested coastal resort communities until Palamos, after which we entered navigation Hell and somehow landed on the unpaved, difficult coastal road though wild Cape Roig until we finally hit pavement again at Calella. From here we endured an excruciating series of very steep ascents and climbs through Tamariu and Aigua Blava before suffering up a final 800' climb to Begur.
Oh, yes - about that dinner - we ate at Turandot, a reasonably priced but classy place a few blocks off the central square. We both had the spinach/ham salad, and then I had a delicious rolled Iberian pork and Rachael had fillet of lubina (aka branzino or European sea bass). It was a set three course menu, so we were compelled to follow up with tiramisu and cheesecake for desert. Pretty close call with last night's feast - we decided we couldn't rate them and would have to be content with remembering the rare delight of back to back wonderful meals. And the wonderful thing is that after all of the day's exertions, neither of us feels at all guilty.
Net elevation gain: 4500' today, 10,800' total
Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 141 miles (227 km)
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