Sort, Spain to Gosol, Spain

Today was, once again, an outstanding day.  The ride was long and difficult, as had been expected, but this was clearly the most scenic day of all so far.  The weather, once again, was spectacular.

The ride today was 103 km long, with a total of 2, 571 meters of climbing.  There were three climbs.  Those were Collada del Canto, Coll de la Trava, and finally Coll de Josa.  The first one started literally right at our hotel in Sort (no time for warm up there), and the last one ended at our hotel in the tiny town of Gosol.

This is now the Catalonia region.  This seems quite different from the more western Pyrenees.  There are more conifers, for one thing.  The mountains are just spectacular.  The Catalonian towns surely look different from the Basque towns.

Today we started out on Collada del Canto.  That's a category 1 climb.  It is 19.3 km long, and the total elevation gain is right at 1,100 meters.  The top is at 1,720 meters above sea level.  When I started out on the climb, I felt nervous, but also strong.  I decided to challenge myself.  It was impulsive, as well as stupid and pointless, but I decided to try to do the whole climb non-stop.  I was actually successful, even surprising myself that I never had to stop for a break on my way up.  I felt so wasted at the top of the climb however, that this self-challenge ranks rather high on my lifelong list of stupid ideas.  Oh well!

This trip never goes through Andorra, but we went close by today.  On our second climb, the one up Coll de la Trava, we found a lookout spot near the top that was probably just 9 to 10 km from Andorra.  I am having trouble uploading photos on this blog, due to the slow internet connection here.  If I can later upload some photos this evening however, maybe when the internet is faster, I will make the second photo be the one looking to the north, from Coll de la Trava, toward the region of Andorra.

Having an absolutely great time.  Pretty tired, and pretty overwhelmed, but having a great time.