Vernet les Bains

May 25, 2014

Over Col de Fourtou

Uh, oh - I'm getting behind - it's the next afternoon already. This is what would always happen with my written journals - at some point I would nod off before writing down notes on the day, get behind, and then give it up. So, what did happen yesterday?

To start with, we awoke happy to see that the weather forecast had improved a bit overnight. Rain is in the forecast, but the expected onset has pushed out a few hours to late afternoon, giving us hopes of arriving dry as long as we don't tarry too long along the way.

We started out by coasting down to the Tech, and crossed/admired the Devil's Bridge. Before arriving in Ceret, I didn't know it was here - and until reading up on it I didn't realize that Devil's Bridge' is sort of a class name, given to dozens of single arch stone or masonry bridges in Europe. They all have a fable attached to them - it's apparently a whole category of folk tale. This one's is that a pact was made with the Devil to build the bridge, in exchange for the first soul to cross over. At the time it was built in the early 1300's, it was the longest single arch bridge (at 45.45 meters) in the world.

From the bridge, there's nowhere to go but up, so we started up a peaceful, modest 1800' climb to Col Fourtou. It was a very enjoyable climb, but the best part of it was seeing a hoopoe fly by. They're a unique, unmistakable bird, and I was shocked by it - I thought they only were found in Africa, but apparently Southern Europe is in their nesting range. A few minutes later I caught up with Rachael to tell her about it, and a second one darted by.

From the col, the road descended the Boule Gorge for 10 miles or so until reaching the Tet River (what's with these river names in the eastern Pyrenees anyway? They all sound the same: Ter, Tech, and now the Tet. Very confusing). Then, gradually upriver again to Prades, when we spurred off to the south for the final climb to Vernet-les-Bains.

This climb surprised us, because it was about 1000' higher than I had expected. Somehow I had estimated this as a 3000' day, so I missed it by about 50%. Along the way, we stopped in for a tour of the abbey of Saint-Michael-de-Cuixa, another great place that I hadn't known was on our route until we climbed up to it. It's a pre-Romanesque complex, 10th century, and largely restored after it had been allowed to fall into decay. I was surprised that some of that decay resulted in significant parts of the cloister being whisked off to New York City for use in building its Cloisters.

With about 5 miles to go, we heard a few rumbles of thunder in the distance, and I started anticipating the smugness of arriving at the hotel in advance of the rains. We were so close - we only missed it by this much! It's remarkable how wet you can get on a bike in 10 minutes though, and we were a sorry spectacle when we finally arrived.

One other piece of news for the day: we got mail! Very early in the trip, the mount to Rachael's video camera broke in half. She really enjoyed capturing clips of our rides on the last tour, so it was a sad moment. Fortunately we were able to order a replacement from Amazon UK and have it delivered to our hotel in Vernet, so she's back in show biz again.

Net elevation gain: 4,500' today, 32,000' total.

360 panorama from Devil's Bridge (from our cellphone): https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=73ED18EEC8BA7424!545&authkey=!AN6Kyjt3SNrPxOQ&ithint=video%2c.mp4