Back to Barcelona - Some Observations

Today is mostly a travel day where I undid everything I’ve done in the last week and made my way back to Barcelona by bus, plane and train, in that order.




Some reflections from the last week:
1. Every long, steep, uphill ride is associated with a long, steep, downhill ride. The opposite is also true.

2. It is difficult to express in words what a relief it is when one is riding on an isolated, gravel path with an ocean cliff on one side and endless rolling hills on the other side, when the riding directions say “The path comes up against an orange house just after passing two stone eagles on our right. We turn right,” and then at a point on the ride you actually do come up against an orange house just after passing two stone eagles on the right.

3. Even when you get a lot of joy out of bicycle riding, after seven straight days of it you can also get a lot of joy out of not bicycle riding.

4. In many of the towns I’ve passed, people park their boats in tidal areas that are just mud flats at low tide, so for roughly half the day, their boats are embedded in mud. I guess they figure that whatever they have to go out for, nothing’s so important that they can’t just wait for high tide. Perhaps there is a lesson in this for all of us.






 And these incongruities I’ve noticed:
1. One of the beaches I passed was called “The Beach of the Virgin Mary,” which both seems inappropriate and also brings to mind some pretty entertaining images.

2. There are spots along the Camino de Santiago with kilometer markers, which seems pretty much at odds with why anyone is on the Camino de Santiago.

3. This place at right had a sign on the front gate that said “This is an operating cattle ranch, not a
playground. Please keep out.” Really?