Introduction

I am writing this story well over a year after the actual bike trip; all I now have are my memories…those for sure, but as we are living in a world of technology, I also have some 1,638 photos patiently stacked away in a folder to be scanned through. Then there is this thing called Google Timeline – which tracks your geographical movements day by day (unless you opt to turn it off) - this proved to be invaluable in re-creating my route. Just a single day after the end of the very bike trip I am just about to tell you about, I started a new, rather challenging job - with lots of extra hours, leaving me little time or energy to tend to the creating of this blog. I did end up quitting a couple of months after starting there, I then started yet another bike trip, then one more - so right now I owe the big wide world not only this blog, but two more....so I think to be busy writing for quite a while in the near future.

For now, let us go back in time to the summer of 2021. Back then, I was thinking about a destination and I finally decided to fly to Barcelona. For those that do not know me, these decisions are usually made just a couple of days prior to departure, with absolutely no itinerary in my head. In the case of Barcelona, I was scanning tickets and stumbled upon an offer for the very next day. Where would I ride to? How would I get back home? I did not know and cared even less – the only constraint was having to show up and shine bright for this new job on a somewhat dreaded Monday middle of August. Back then, in the middle of July, it seemed all so far, far away…

Here comes a bit of a spoiler alert - if you look at the title of this blog, it says "Barcelona2Bilbao", yes, I ended up riding from Barcelona to Bilbao, both Spanish cities, so this is probably a Spanish blog. Well, partially true, but I also ended up riding in France and in Andorra - crossing borders multiple times. The trip would take me over the Pyrenees Mountains, but I would also see some of Costa Brava, Catalonian back country, the Basque Country, many wonderful towns, both small and large, plus a lot of mountain passes. This is the story as how it unfolded, come and follow me, hopefully you will enjoy it quite as much as I enjoyed riding it and then writing about it.