Day 53: Maureillas Las Illas to Figueres

October 18, 2023

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Our place last night, Auberge du Chene - near to Maureillas- was a "chambre d'hote" type of arrangement, where you are sharing the place with the proprietor. In this case, Greg, the proprietor, did his part perfectly - making us feel welcome, making sure we had everything we needed, and then leaving us alone, including at breakfast. In the everything we needed department, we asked for two giant extension cords, to help with charging the batteries but mainly to keep our phones charged as they played us stories through the night. Greg and his Mrs. went and dug out whatever we wanted, failing to make up any rules about what could be plugged in where.

Greg and his wife. We left the bikes unlocked, asking if they had any thieves about this district. Greg said they had had one, about 14 years ago, but they burned him in his car. We assume he was joking!

The Auberge was well positioned to observe the D900 road, which seems to be one way to start the ride to the Perthus Pass, and then down into Spain. It turns out that the question of how to get from here to the top of the mountains and then down is a bit of a topic, sometimes a hot topic. It figures, because cyclists generally going to or from Barcelona have to cross these mountains somehow. If I am still awake later on this page, I will trying putting every route we have heard of on a single map.

But for now, we are setting off on the Scott Anderson preferred/ Leo Woodland suggested, McLeod/Karstoo beloved route by the Col de Manrella, the one that passes the Lluis Companys monument. Here we go...

They also have that exposed bell in the tower.

Aha, the Col de Panissars is the one Scott/Rachael hated.

Dodie is looking ahead, guessing which col will be ours.

There are some fairly high mountains lurking around.

Here is the crux of the matter - EV 8 calls for a left turn, but we are going right.

Must be a fire tower, way up in the distance

Unlike McLeod/Kaarsoo we did not encounter any cement trucks. Just this thing.

I avoided looking down. It was a long long way down!

This is where, from our point of view, the ride deteriorated. The track showed we should turn left, up that very steep bit. This caused a mutiny with we two on one side and no one but a GPS phone on the other. We carried on straight!

But by the time we got to THIS, we had come to accept that maybe the phone knew what it was talking about, so up we went. Only thing, this was too steep for our bikes to manage, so we had to push. We pushed about 7 km! Some other (stronger and/or younger) writers, like Leo, had downplayed this aspect of the ride.

A strange aspect of the pushing up here was that we were passing numerous houses. This shot down any fantasy that we were broaching some remote mountain pass. One house also had about five white dogs. Maybe these were Pyrenees? Their faces are not quite right.

Finally we came to the often described stretch of rough road, just before the top. It sure was rough indeed.

Beyond the rocks was an open area, containing the monument to Lluis Companys. This, and other roadside signs tells the story of how in 1936 Franco did a coup d'etat, spawning the Spanish Civil War. Members of the former government and other non-Franco supporters fled the country, many using passes like this one.

The monument has fresh decorations, because there is a ceremony here every October 15.

This truck drove in from the Spanish side and disrupted our musings by dumping branches.

GI-505 descended steeply, and seemed to go on and on. Thinking of coming up it made me ill.

Agullana is the first town reached down this side.

Beyond Agullana one crosses the AP-7 and probably the D900, coming down from the Perthus Pass.

It's a giant truck stop area, with large hotels and groceries, sporting huge signs.

At first we set out to leave this area using Scott's track. But it looked to us like we were going to go back up in the hills again doing this on the GI-601, and neither our bodies nor our bike batteries were into that. So we turned and went down the busy N11. Ken and Judy had mentioned a good shoulder, and that turned out to be so.

One use being made of the wide shoulder was by scantily clad ladies, no doubt hoping to pick up trucker traffic. I stopped and complimented this one on her yellow vest, and she laughed in appreciation.

We passed at least one other truck stop scene before reaching Figueres, making this not the most scenic of rides, except that Dodie seemed able to spot those roadside ladies quite handily.

We made it into Figueres quite early, all in all, something like McLeod and Kaarsoo, who had had a lunch appointment to keep. At the hotel, the lady spoke English, and was able to check us in quickly. I carried the bikes up one floor, and they fit easily into the room.

We soon set off for a quick stroll on "Los Ramblas" - the walking street. I must have been tired enough to be staring at my feet even more than usual, because I walked straight into that glass sliding door shown below. The impact was enough to cause people to come running, but I am not feeling any dopier than usual.

Figueres has a pleasant pedestrian area, and some interesting buildings. Here below is a quick look.

The ice cream from this one was top quality!

Back at the hotel, Dodie had asked for a quiet back room, having listened to the noise of D900 all last night. We did get a room with a little balcony looking out back, and on a nearby balcony we had a nice dog neighbour.

But also out back were some furthest back tables of an adjoining restaurant. These tended to attract loud groups that wanted to be on their own back there, to talk loudly, and smoke. This forced us to keep our balcony door closed, so we were dying of heat in here. Unlike smokers by a front door, we don't think we can quite throw water on their heads!

Addendum: Herding Cats

I tried putting the various routes people used getting over the mountains from Ceret/Maureillas Las Illas, and the ways they went once over the top, basically from Agullana to Figueres. It wasn't too successful, because with computer mapping, when you zoom out you lose place names. Also, the different routes need different colours, and it's hard to describe different shades. Anyway, does this make any sense:

You can see below Ceret, Maureilles, Las IIlas, Le Perthus. The top of the mountain/the border is the grey line with the orange dots. Starting from Maureilles, in Green it is the Grampies, Scott 2022, and McLeod/Karsoo. They all go up past Las Illas. In purple, it is EV8 and Scott 2018. In orange, it is D900 past Perthus. Near D900, invisible on this map, is a little road that may be what Ken and Judy took.

Once over the top, everyone seems to converge at Agullana. But now we see McLeod/Karsoo (in thin turquoise) heading directly south, by GI 504. Grampies today, in heavy green go east, to that interchange. They continue east a bit, lured by the thin purple Scott 2022, which is trying to join with Scott 2018/EV8 over on the far right of the picture. Grampies give up on this and shoot south on the N11. Got it?

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 2,789 km (1,732 miles)

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Scott AndersonCongratulations! I’ve been watching for this post all afternoon, anxious for you both.
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6 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonThanks Scott, for the information and tips and also for caring about us. Truth be told, Dodie slept poorly last night, worrying about our routing choice but feeling like it was the best one we had.
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6 months ago

Suzanne GibsonDitto what Scott said! Well done!
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6 months ago