Day 25 Sightseeing in Pamplona

It’s hard to believe, but I have now finished stage two – crossing Spain - of my across Europe journey from the south of Portugal to The Netherlands.

  Tomorrow morning I set out from Pamplona to cross the Pyrenees and into France, probably the country I have been looking forward to the most to cycle across.

  With about 50 kilometres in Spain to go tomorrow before I finally cross into France, I will have done a total of 1368 kilometres since I set out from Faro on April 26.

  In that time I have had just about everything thrown at me weather and terrain-wise, but am pleased to report I am fit and raring to go on the next 4 to 5 week stage across France.

  Due to the terrible weather in encountered in Spain I don’t believe I saw the country I cycled through in the best conditions, but was still amazed by many of the sights I saw.

  Without doubt the Sierra de la Demanda National Park was the highlight of the trip so far, and by coincidence that day provided by far the best weather I enjoyed during my 9 days cycling in Spain.

  I am afraid my body clock just doesn’t fit in with the Spanish lifestyle. They get up late in the morning, eat lunch late and then shut down during the middle of the day and don’t eat dinner until after 9pm at night.

  Me, by contrast, likes to get going early, eat at a reasonable time in the middle of the day and just can’t get used to eating so late at night.

  France I know will be a different story, so I am certainly looking forward to that.

  Like I did in Portugal, I ran into many lovely and accommodating people everywhere I went in Spain and had many funny moments trying to make myself understood. It is amazing how many animated conversations it is possible to have with complete strangers, with neither participant able to understand one word spoken.

  This was certainly the case with the sheep shepherd who asked me to have a look at his radio that wasn’t working. We had a great talk … he didn’t care that I didn’t understand and I certainly enjoyed the interaction at a tough time of the trip.

  And today I had a wonderful talk with two brothers who did speak broken English in the Pamplona bike shop. Both are proud Basques and spoke with such pride about the country I have travelled through lately, Pamplona and the pass over into France. It really inspired me to get going again!!!

 

Today has been spent both sightseeing and attending to business around Pamplona, a lovely and historic town that is probably most famous for the annual running of the bulls festival.

  The old town where I am staying is a maze of streets that go in every direction full of every type of shop you would expect to see in a major city.

  Much of my time was spent tracking down internet access - a major drama – organising a service for my bike, making a dental appointment to replace a crown that came out and finding a shop that sells maps and camp stove fuel.

  So as you can imagine I spent hours walking around the town, so by the end of the day I felt I knew its layout pretty well.

  The visit to the dentist was an interesting experience. I’m not keen on dentists at the best of times, so it was somewhat disconcerting to get a dentist who had no idea of English and who insisted on going into great detail to tell me what she was going to do to solve my problem.

  My instinct was to get up and leave, but all I did was nod in agreement to everything I couldn’t understand and off she went to work.

  Anyway, I think all went well, the crown is back in place and I was relatively pleased with the 75 Euro bill at the end.

  It’s now time to head off to find somewhere to eat. Yes, it’s after 9pm and the restaurants will finally be open.

  captions. Pic 1: Looking out from the balcony of my hostel Pic 2: The centre square of the old town early morning. Pic 3: Historical monument Pic 4: One of many signs on the running of the bulls route. Pic 5: A running of the bulls statue Pic 6: Another sign at the entrance to the bull ring. The bulls are herded through here at the end of the run through the streets.