We woke up to our 6:30am alarm , excited to get an early start to the day before the heat came. It was a beautiful morning, where we watched the start of sunrise right from our sleeping bags, since we had left the fly off.
The first 20km was hilly, but pretty along the coast and it was fun to ride the same roads we had done for our 2020 Europe Cycle Tour. We had fancy pastries and coffees in Port Vendres and learned to order a “noisette” coffee (espresso with a dash of warm milk costs €1.30, but a larger cup cafe au lait costs €2.60. “noisette” means hazelnut, which refers to the colour of the coffee rather than the taste).
We picked up a baguette from a bakery and lunch groceries from Lidl, where, in typical fashion, there was an annoyingly long/slow queue. It was pretty cycling through Argeles Sur Mer, a cute seaside town. It was here where we left the Mediterannean and headed inland, bound for the Pyranees. This began through flat farmlands and then quite quickly changed to the series of hills that culminated in Col de Fourtou and Col de Palomere. We then had a great decent down the nicely paved mountain road going down from the pass all the way to Prades in the valley below.
We got a hotel tonight, which was much more than we’ve paid in the past (€70 vs our more customary €40), but it was the cheapest I could find online and it was very nice to have a warm shower, space to clean our clothes, and a nice bed to sleep in. We had another dinner of pasta, lentils, tomato sauce, and fuet.
Sounds amazing, you are both super fit. Love Port Vendres ❤️. Keep having wonderful times on your honeymoon. Hi xxx