Jesus*, who owns the apartment, gave me some tips on things to visit in the area. I asked him about somewhere I might be able to get some mountain view shots and he suggested Vollter 2000. It is ski resort, which is above 2000m hence the number added to the name (seems a bit unnecessary to me but hey I guess I am not the target demographic). *I cannot work out how to add the accent on the letter u with the blog editing software, which I am sure would help clarify things.
Random fact, as an indication of what a small world it is, it turns out Jesus studied at Exeter Uni.
So after a trip to the supermarket to pick up coffee and milk (I did not have room in the bag yesterday – no prizes for guessing why) and getting lost in the one way system (mental note to self always put the sat nav on the bike when you are somewhere you do not know), eventually I was ready to set off, by which time the sky looked like this:
I decided if it started raining I would simply turn round and come home, but no need, within a few minutes the clouds has disappeared and I was on my way to Vallter (approx. 25 miles away). I was actually quite pleased to be doing a more touristy thing because it kept me off the biking roads, there were hoards of bikes out today.
On the way through miles and miles of nothing I saw this, it is not like there is a lack of space or ‘normal’ hills to build on, but why not I guess.
What is not obvious from the following photo is that between the v in the rocks is nothing for I do not know how far down, only a few metres from the edge of the road.
When I arrived the place is just literally a load of car parks on different levels, an information centre a bar/restaurant and some chair lifts, which I guess is all you need for a ski area. There is a fancy looking ‘new town’ further down the mountain for the apres ski, though I bypassed it.
I decided if I wanted the views I would have to make use of the one chair lift they had running, which would take me up to 2,535m, I did not really think about this figure when jumping on the chair lift.
On a good day the Med should be viewable.
It was shortly after this photo that I had to sit down because I was feeling proper odd. It has happened before in the Dolomites, which I think was also over 2,000m. Me and altitude clearly do not party well. So 20 minutes after arriving I jumped back on the lift to go back down.
My next stop on the tourist trail was a medieval town called Beget. Though it turns out the single track road with rock face one side and barrier the other is slow going, but I got there eventually with the temperature now at 28C and rising. The town is pedestrianised and I took one look at the gradient of the cobbled street and decided cobblers to that so this is all you get.
At this stage I decided I had partaken in enough tourism for one day and pointed the bike in the opposite direction of the route in and headed out into ‘nowhere’ I travelled for about 30 minutes with the sat nav insisting I u-turn and not seeing another person. I was rewarded with this view of mountains for as far as I could see.
The sat nav eventually capitulated and brought me back to Ripoll via a different route.
I went out for a recce in Ripoll to see where the monastry is (it has a stone archway/portal of historic significance) and also to check out restaurants to eat at later. I found a contender and came back to the apartment to catch up with the blog…now it is too late for dinner!
