Saturday, July 31

The next morning the weather was partially better, a mixture of fogs and clouds, but at least there were some patches of blue sky. Right outside town, the road crept upwards, with quite a few switch-backs, leading next to pastures with wild horses gazing.

I reached the pass called Port d’Envalira at 2,408 meters above the sea. The last few hundred meters of the road was probably the most dreadful of the summit roads I have seen, lined up by a number of petrol stations, where folks from France and Spain drive to, in order to save a couple of cents per liter. One thing I did learn was that this summit is that it is and has been part of the Tour de France (in 2021 and in some years prior to that)– I would come across quite a few more times on this trip.

Riding downhill was fun – but I was pretty cold, it being just around 13 degrees. Here I had a view of Circ de Pessons, a hiking area carved out by glaciers. My appreciation of Andorra did not improve when I rode through more appalling towns full of tall concrete buildings. The otherwise wonderful nature is being destroyed by all these unfitting high-rises. On the positive side were the ancient churches about a millennium old, I visited one of them, Sant Joan de Caselles, with wall paintings and a stucco of Jesus. Another highlight was a village, full of stone houses, once again, I felt like going back in time by a few hundred years.

So I reached Andorra la Vella, the capital. Come on tourists, come, everything is cheap here – and people are doing exactly this, there were herds of buyers mingling in the shopping streets. There were patches of historical buildings, however, I was not compelled to stay all too long here. By the way, la Vella is the highest capital city in Europe, at 1,050 meters. On the outskirts of town was a football stadium, where my native country Hungary lost against the semi-amateur team of this nation. At the border, I spotted a huge line of cars entering the country. Probably due to the COVID situation, everyone entering from the Spanish side was controlled, I did not envy those have to stand an hour or so. Altogether, Andorra was a bit of a disappointment.

One interesting fact about Andorra, as I am writing this blog in October of 2022: Google Maps does not even offer the option of biking through the country - this is something very much possible in all of France and all of Spain - not in Andorra. True, not the most bike-friendly place.

Back now in Spain, I got to the town of La Seu d’Urgell on the Segre and Valira rivers, the residence of bishops (in Catalanian, “seu” means “seat of bishops”). There was a cathedral, multiple churches, a cloister. Luckily, there was also a covered passage, as a huge thunder came down.

Not down, but up led the road out of town, up to yet another summit, called El Canto at 1,720 meters. On the way there, I rode through small villages with stone houses and churches - I loved these. The weather was somewhat overcast, with fair amount of sunshine and looked quite stable.

At the summit, which I reached only around 7 pm, I called my partner to check in. While on the phone, I suddenly heard a large thunderstorm overhead. Uh-oh, I quickly hang up and put on some rain cover. Even the best of this equipment would not have helped of what was to follow. A rain of unlikely proportions started pounding me, accompanied by frequent lightning and thunderstorms. I saw the storm literally swirling above me. Not long later, it started hailing. The temperature, which was around 20 degrees prior to the rain, must have dropped by about 15 degrees, I later saw it at 5 degrees Celsius.

I spotted a restaurant which was firmly locked, but, luckily, they did have some tents put up, probably serving as sun shade. For a few minutes, it provided some sort of cover, but as even the wind was howling, there was no place to hide. The best bet was under the entrance, here I was accompanied by a couple on their motorbikes, the lady was trying to use her cell phone, she could hardly hit the buttons, she was shivering so bad. The worst thing was that it really did not want to stop, I have seen such thunders disappearing after a few minutes, but not this one. There were a few houses a couple of hundred meters away, but, honestly, I myself would not have let any stranger knocking on my door soaking wet at eight in the evening.

Even the thought of leaving the relative shelter of the entrance was an unpleasant thought. My best option was to try to hike down one of the few cars crossing the pass at this time. One car did slow down and even stopped, I was saved, so I thought, but when he saw I was on a bike, he rode on. Somewhat later an RV pulled up and a nice young couple, Igone and Jon from Bilbao, we somehow squeezed my bike in and now we were on the way towards the valley. Next to Spanish, they spoke excellent English and even German (no, not a word in Hungarian), as they worked for an international corporation.

The road was full of ice, I was really glad not having to ride on it with my two wheels and we were cruising downhill carefully, at a low speed. Probably that one other car, which was being rescued, did not slow down quite enough, only to skid off the road. So we arrived in a town called Sort, which means “luck” in Catalonian, here the town lived up to its name, as I got lucky to find a hotel room in a 4* hotel, that was waaay past its zenith. At €90, it definitely cost more that the wild-campings on the previous nights, but the hot shower was worth every penny. I hung up all my wet stuff and went to sleep - this is how the month of July ended up in the mountains.

Here you can see the trip in Google Maps, it about 100 kilometers - less about 15 kilometers which I rode on the camping car. Alas, Andorra does not show the elevation difference, I estimate this to be around 1500 meters.