One thing that was amazing when we crossed from France to Spain was how quickly the culture changed. Within a mile, many people didn’t speak any French at all, and the food and drink choices had all changed. One of the most dramatic food changes occurs at breakfast. French breakfasts are all basically empty calories: breads, croissants, pain au chocolate, etc and coffee.
In Spain, breakfasts are eggs, meat, hearty cheeses, bread and coffee. They might also include potatoes and vegetables, but it’s mostly protein and fat with just enough bread to hold the other stuff in your hand. Oh, and there’s salt in the meat and the cheese, which is great when riding in hot weather.
For dinner the night before, we had a 2 traditional dishes. Chris had fish topped with 2 eggs and potatoes and I had loin of beef with mushrooms, peppers and French fries. Both really tasty. The yolks of Chris’ eggs were almost orange they were so deep in color. Country food.
The next morning at 8:30, we took off from Labaien under cloudy skies and cool temperatures to climb over the saddle of the Pyrenees, a climb of about 1800 feet.
Labaien is a twin hamlet with another small town less than a kilometer away. Both seem like meccas for hiking and outdoor activities. There seemed to be 4-5 different lodgings for people traveling by foot, horse, bike or even car. The Camino del Santiago is right there as well, and so we saw many people with small packs and hiking poles while we traveled.
Our climb over the summit was steady and offered some lovely views. There were some downs with the ups and the sun broke through the clouds along the way.
From the top, we had mostly downhill to Pamplona, with some intermittently extremely steep short climbs that had us pushing our bikes.
The landscape was dry and brown and hot. We rode on a lot of gravel roads and paths, some of which are quite rough and/or loose. The high temperature for the day was 98F and the sun was strong. We came to the edge of old Pamplona and found with delight that there’s a funicular that we could take to the top, avoiding that last climb.
We had to wait to get into our apartment due to some communication issues but bided our time having a couple cold beers at the bar just outside our apartment building.
Getting to our apartment, it’s beautiful and huge. We got it since it was nice and such, but the real reason was that it had air conditioning, with temperatures for next 5 days at or above 100F. It can sleep 9 people! The view of the square was lovely out the window and we had a quiet dinner at home after having a couple beers out on the square.
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