It will be closed at the moment, we tried one year in January with a Land Rover and couldn't get near it!

About May/June onwards. Lots of nice places to see as you head north! Where are you planning later in the year?

Plan? :confused1:

Europe?

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

If you get to the UK, shout up!

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/194.html



Just a quick update as to what we've been doing the last couple of weeks, which is not very much.

We're really enjoying staying in our apartment here in Calella. The weather is sunny most of the time. Neda has taken up jogging on the boardwalk every couple of days, shopping in the market in the mornings and coming up with new dishes to cook for us. I've taken up doing nothing. Life is good.


Wet ride to the Dali Theatre-Museum. Yes, those are eggs crowning the top of the building...

We found out that the Salvador Dali museum was nearby. It's in Figueres, about an hour north of here, near the French border. Dali was my favorite artist when I was in university, I had a print of his melting clocks, "The Persistence of Memory", pasted up on the wall of my dorm room just like most of the undergraduates I went to school did.

Of course, the day we planned to ride over, it rained. Of course. But we were stubborn and decided to go anyway. The thinking was that we were going to spend the entire time inside, so this was a perfect day as any to do it and not miss any sunshine.


Outside the Theatre-Museum. Yes, that is an egg dressed up in papal robes. Yes, that is a deep-sea diver on the balcony.
Yes, those are statues holding gold loaves of bread over their head...

I love the surreal and absurdist style of Dali. It's just so weird and appeals to the side of me that likes to poke fun at everything, making comments and jokes that most people don't get. In my mind, I always picture Dali creating his works of art while snickering away, amusing the only person that he ever intended to amuse: himself. I totally get that.


Part of the fun of Dali sculptures and paintings is verbally describing them to someone who hasn't seen them

"Yeah, so there's this old black, vintage car in the courtyard. There's a hood ornament welded to the car. It's a huge Venus-de-Milo type of statue - big boobs, big hips. It's huge. No, it's not a foot high, more like 10-feet tall. Yes, welded onto the hood like an ornament! But wait, there's more... Behind the car is a stack of tires, it's even taller than the hood ornament. Then on top of that stack of tires is a long pole with a boat on top of it. Dripping from the boat are these huge drops of water that look like testicles!

I swear I'm not making this up. I have a picture of it!"

I love Dali...


One thing I never knew about Dali is that he also made jewelry

A separate building houses a collection of jewelry, most of them made of gold inset with precious gems. The rooms are dark, the only thing lit up are the jewelry. Dali himself is entombed in this building in a crypt on the first floor.

The pieces are quite beautiful and show a different side of the artist I never knew about. The above is a hand mirror decorated with gold coins and a stylized Dali signature that he stamped on all of his works.


"Figure at a window"

Dali's primary muse was his wife, Gala. Almost all of his paintings and photos are of her. The only other female model that he used was his younger sister, Ana Maria, shown here in his famous painting, "Figure at a window".

My primary muse is Neda's yellow F650GS. Almost all of my pictures are of that bike...

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

This style of painting is what Dali is most known for.

I was a bit disappointed that his most famous surreal paintings are not on display in Figueres. The Persistence of Memory is currently housed in the Musueum of Modern Art in New York City.


That's a neat looking couch...


Sometimes a different perspective is needed...

I'm sure Andy Warhol was in part inspired by the works of Dali. He once said his paintings are "hand-painted dream photographs". So apt. He was one of a minority of artists that actually became famous during his lifetime, due in large part to the self-promotion he and his wife did.


You can see part of Dali's upturned moustache reaching up to his eye here

We didn't really do a lot of riding in the last couple of weeks, but we did get out to see Montserrat on another occasion. This time we looked for a nice, sunny day to go out.


Unfortunately, the weather is very different up in the mountains than by the coast

Montserrat is set amongst the peaks of Catalunya, about 50 kms north of Barcelona and only 45 minutes away from where we were in Calella. It's a great area to go hiking and to get some spectacular views of the hills and valleys below. Surprisingly, it was me who organized this hiking excursion. An early Christmas gift to Neda...


Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey amongst the clouds

Our bikes climbed over 1200m (4000 feet) above the coast and the temperatures plummeted as we ascended. The sunny day in Calella was replaced by a cold, heavy fog and as we reached the town of Montserrat, the famous Benedictine monastery (Santa Maria) was shrouded in mist.

We had brought all of our hiking clothes, but because everything was obscured by the haze, we debated about whether to actually go or not. We didn't really feel like hiking around inside a cloud for the entire afternoon. After a quick sandwich break, the early afternoon sun started burning through the mists so it was Go Time!

Truthfully, part of me was hoping that it would have been too cloudy to hike: "Hey, at least I made the effort, right Neda?"

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

The Monastery is the most-important religious retreat in Catalunya, many residents do at least one overnight pilgrimage in their lives to watch the sun rise over the peak of Montserrat


View of the Monastery from the cable-car, mist is slowly being burned away by the sun

We take a cable-car up to one of the peaks of Montserrat so we can hike down the mountain. Hey, this may be a Christmas present to Neda, but I'm not that crazy as to offer to actually hike *UP* a mountain!


Neda is excited to be hiking above the clouds

We never got to use our hiking clothes. It was way too cold so we just hiked in all of our warm motorcycle gear and boots...


One Tree Hill


Montserrat means "Saw (serrated) mountain" in Spanish

On our hike at the summit, we were surrounded by these jagged fingers of rock that reached up from the valley due to the differences in erosion and weathering of the limestone rock throughout the ages.


You know how you can walk around with a pained expression most of the time and when someone points a camera at you and tells you to smile, you can turn on a happy face for an instant? Well, this is what that looks like...

It wasn't that bad, the weather turned out to be sunny, although it was sooooo cold up there!


More saw-tipped peaks


Tall fingers of rock overlooking the valley, must be popular with rock climbers


Going back home, the weather turns nice again!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/195.html



This is our third Christmas on the road. It's another low-key event for us, but that's all about to change. After three restful weeks in Calella, we're packing up the bikes again! But this time we've got company!


Tajana and Iva have joined us on our trip!

Neda's high school friends have driven all the way from Croatia and they are spending a couple of weeks of their vacation with us. The reason we took an extended break in Calella was to prepare for the arrival of The Pula Girls. I remember how we used to travel when we were on vacation - wanting to see and do everything in what limited span of time we had. So I convinced Neda to take some time off beforehand in preparation for a whirlwind tour with her friends.

The girls descended onto our apartment bearing Christmas gifts - namely lots of food! All the Croatian favourites that put a smile on Neda's face and made me have to loosen the belt on my riding pants. They were very excited about traveling with us and were very curious to discover how we travel: how we packed all our belongings on the bikes everyday, what our pace felt like, how we lived on the road.


Looking down onto our Barcelona neighbourhood

Barcelona is only half an hour away from Calella, so the next day, we gathered all the belongings that we had strewn all over in our settled-in apartment and got ready to leave. The Pula Girls got the answer as to how we pack our bikes: Very slowly. I anticipated this and Neda and I started an hour earlier to stuff all our belongings into various dry bags, liners and jacket pockets. Everything had a place and it was rare to leave something behind because of the Tetris-like hole it would leave in our crammed luggage.

All the girls did was throw a suitcase into the trunk of their car. And despite the hour head-start we had on them, they were still waiting for us.


More free parking in downtown Barcelona

Through AirBnB, we found a rustic apartment right in the downtown area, which turned out to be not so expensive since we were sharing the costs four ways. Unfortunately for the girls, parking in downton Barcelona is super-expensive. Some places nearby were asking €40 a day! That was more than what their share of the apartment was! They found parking quite a ways away, but it still cost them €24 per day.

In contrast, we rode up onto the sidewalk outside our apartment and left the bikes parked there. Free. The girls may be discovering how we travel, but we are also learning how expensive our trip could be if we were doing it by car. I estimate our costs would have easily doubled in some of the larger cities we were visiting just because of the parking alone!


La Boqueria

We are leaving all the planning of the trip to The Pula Girls. This is their vacation so we are merely tagging along and following them to all the places they want to visit in Spain. It feels good not to have to plan at all.

One of the places we visited was La Boqueria, one of the largest markets in Barcelona where you can pick up all sorts of fresh vegetables, meats, pastries, sweets, etc. I loosened the belt on my pants a little bit more in anticipation...


The minute I saw this octopus on the counter, I knew it was not going to last very long


As predicted,The Pula Girls all ordered octopus salad

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/198.html



I know now why we travel so slowly.

Every place we've stopped in Europe, we have been able to score free parking. But the drawbacks to keeping your bike out on the street is that you have to unstrap all the soft bags and bring them inside. Then rinse and repeat in reverse the next morning when you leave. So we are basically packing and unpacking twice a day. Something we rarely did in Latin America because we always rode the bike right into the hotel lobby... It's a Major Hassle. General Pain-In-The-Ass! Like Corporal Punishment! (HIMYM)


Strap on, strap off. The Strapper.

The Pula Girls are waiting for us again. Since we only have a short ways to go for our first stop of the day, we leave Alpujarra de la Sierra together and start heading westwards on the very twisty Andalucian mountain roads. Iva has an idea to take a video of us riding away, so I combined some of her footage with mine to make a short video:


Ewan and Charley better start looking for new jobs...

Iva is now the official RideDOT.com videographer. We are going to petition her to change her name to Claudio. Every ride needs a Claudio.


Around the curve, the white village of Trevélez appears ahead of us

We meet up with the girls in Trevélez, which is known for it's air-cured Iberian hams, specifically the Jamon Serrano. The buildings are white-washed like all the Pueblos Blancos (White Towns) in Andalucia. They say that alkaline properties of the white limewash are anti-bacterial and is also a natural insecticide, but also the buildings are all the same colour for "social cohesiveness". The paint is a relatively recent development. No record of Pueblos Blancos can be found before 1920.

So in other words, "make it appealing for the gringo tourists and their cameras"...

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Feel so bad that I didnt know when u came to India. Good to know all the stomach .... are all ok

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/197.html



The girls are waiting for us again. It was a tedious process walking to the parking lot, riding our bikes to the front of our apartment then taking a couple of trips in and out of the building to load up all our bags again. Meanwhile, the girls were sitting in their car, watching us with bemusement as we fussed around with all manner of straps, tie-downs, dry bags and tank bags, etc.

It reminded me of when we used to snowboard and we had a few skiers in our group. When we reached the top of the lift, the skiers would stand around impatiently and watch us as we sat down on the snow to fuss around with our bindings before heading down. Invariably, the skiers would tell us that they would just meet us at the bottom or meet us at the chalet for lunch.

So I think that's what's going to happen. We left Valencia together, but because of the different pace and scheduling, we might just meet up at the next apartment and compare stories at the end of the day.

Motorcycles and cars just travel differently.


Taking the path less traveled. AKA getting lost...

The girls wanted to see a place called El Castell de Guadelest, an 11th-century castle built by Muslims as a watchtower for defense. So we turned inland and the coastal scenery was replaced by semi-arid scrublands and the mountains of the Alicante province (La Muntanyas d'Alacant).

Along the way, our GPSs routed us along this broken road that turned gravelly. Neda and I were really enjoying ourselves as the scenery was fantastic and the road was a lot of fun, but I looked back often to make sure the girls were okay in their car. Tajana's little Opel Astra seemed to be handling the uneven terrain okay, and there was no oncoming traffic on the narrow "road" so it all worked out for everyone!

Here's a taste of the scenery before the road crumbled away and I had to use both hands on the bars:


Riding the Alicante Province


Back on the main road, and the Castell de Guadelest appears in the distance

Not much remains of the castle, but we could see the watchtower from the bottom. Once again, we opted to not pay the entrance fee, so Tajana the historian went up for a look while we walked around the town at the bottom.


View of the castle from the bottom of Guadelest

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

I'm sporting my new palm tree hat. Picture by Iva


Amazing semi-drylands of Alicante


Girl-talk at the fountain in Guadelest

From Guadelest, the skiers parted company from the snowboarders. Iva and Tajana wanted to see Cartagena, but if we were to accompany them, that would mean arriving at our next apartment after dark, so Neda and I opted to head straight to our next stop. The roads around Guadelest are very entertaining and the two of us had a lot of fun until we hit the coast and then it was straight onto Roldan.


Trying to find our next apartment, through the wastelands between urbanizacions

Iva booked our next apartment in a town called Roldan. It is what's called an "urbanizacion" in Spain, which is sort of like a gated community out in the middle of nowhere. These urbanizaciones are mainly created by ex-pats who want to live in a warm climate, but don't want to live in an expensive city or an expensive beach or mingle with the locals . So they create a community of houses and condominiums in the middle of nowhere, maybe also build a golf course, swimming pools and supermarkets nearby as well.

The result is a super-cheap place to stay with all the amenities for vacationers and snowbirds. Since this was low season (too cold for golfing), a lot of the apartments here are put up for rent for short-term stays. Our place in a golfing community was super-luxurious and cheap to boot! I wished we could have stayed more than one night, but this was just a pit-stop.


We got lost and entered the wrong urbanizacion. But you get the idea... very ritzy...

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

From Roldan, skiers and snowboarders departed the next morning separately and headed into the hills of Andalucia! It was quite co-incidental that the next place the girls wanted to see was also where we visited on our last tour of Europe. Looking back on our path, we are actually doing our trip in reverse!


Twisty roads in the rolling hills of Andalucia. That's me, riding somewhere in the middle of the picture!


I think I have almost the exact same picture from the same area from our last trip!


Pausing for a relaxing break by the fireplace *whew*

We have stopped in a small town called Alpujarra de la Sierra, which is just a few kms from Berchules, where we stayed seven years ago. I took a look at our path in the last few days and I'm astounded at our pace. You know when you're walking in the airport and then you step on one of those moving sidewalks and then suddenly you're walking twice as fast? Well traveling with The Pula Girls is nothing like that. Instead, it's like riding around and then suddenly being towed by a rocketship compared to how we usually travel.

And the funny thing is that the girls are doing twice as much as we were, cramming in all sorts of sightseeing in between stops. They are literally running circles around us!


Walking around the very tiny town of Alpujarra de la Sierra


Looking out over our apartment. Andalucia is beautiful!


Shaking the olive tree. There's a net underneath that catches the olives as they fall from the tree.


Yes, I am deathly allergic to cats

Cats are bastardos. When you call out to them, they'll never come to you. But the minute you ignore them or go out of your way to avoid them, they make a beeline straight for you.

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

I love that part of Spain! Spent a week there a while ago riding around on a 1200GS on a fly/ride holiday getting lost on all of the twisty roads.
If you're still around there check out La Calera in Teba. Amazing views, cheap accommodation and not at all on the gringo trail.

Enjoy the never ending, near perfect roads!

I have been reading all through your post. Find it very readable. Some of the places I would like to see and travel my self. Have you thought of putting up GPS location references to the over night stay's, so other traveller's can follow in your foot steep's.
John933

__________________
To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

Be careful following Gene & Neda................you WILL get wet

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon