So I am on big tour. And I should finally post some pics here even though most of them are on mastodon. If you want to check it: https://f.cz/@plactagonic I try to post pretty regular updates from my tour there.
First week I rode from Madrid to Valencia, I had planned to take Camino del Cid but I naively expected that it will be signed. So I quickly get on my own route and had a blast with some hilly sections.
This is Albarracín, nice medival village with castle.
In Valencia I stayed for 2 days to get some rest and at least look around the city center. But it is a pain sometimes to get in and out of cities here, from Madrid I had to take a train and here it was on sometimes missing cycle path. You just see all the faces of the country when you are bikepacking.
When I was leaving Valencia I met Sejdeborns (they have a YT channel) on their tour from Sweden to Morocco. They were on tandem bike so they took path along the coast, let me tell you don’t take the path it is ugly I took only one pick when it was just missing. Go inland!
From there it was pretty much on Via Verde routes that are made from old railways so I have lots of pics of tunnels.
And through olive orchards so it became quite repetitive. I decided in Alicante that because of high headwind forecasted I should go inland. Yeah even inland there was headwind… 3 days of it. But I grinded through this inconvenience and now I am in Seville and next week I should be in Portugal where I will take the Atlantic coast route.
So thats what is going on right now on my tour, it is just a sneak peek, as I write in the beginning I try to post dayli on mastodon. I can tag it that it appears in this community but from my experience it just doesn’t look right (the formatting).
I had to take train to Guadalajara, when I tried to ride from Madrid I nearly ended up on highway… So I probably ride quite similar route.
And after I had few really cold nights I just took the shortest route to coast. So I missed Teruel, but to be fair I will definitely return to Spain someday. First I have to learn some Spanish, it is rough to talk through mobile translation.
Since I am someone who doesn’t plan ahead all that much, I likely would have ended up on the highway too. I guess I am lucky, then? Guadalajara is quite a good place to finish too.
Teruel on the other hand was not that exciting. Even the planes – they just stand there, and they’re many but that’s it. While you can see them from the road, it’s probably a lot more exciting to see them from above.