Jousting with Windmills

Toledo turned out to be a fantastic place to stay and explore for a couple of days. The hotel was just to one side of the old city and with restaurants and souvenir shops and bars galore we had no problem in amusing ourselves. Like many of the old Medieval towns in Spain the buildings in Toledo are four stories high and very narrow. As a result the sun does not penetrate into these streets so easily and it stays a little cooler. 

On the edge of the old town

The Cathedral

The down side is when you walk into one of the squares at midday and it’s like a scene from the Chronicles of Riddick!! 

Tall buildings = Cool streets

The third day we fired up the bike and headed south to find the windmills around Consuegra. These are the ones that Don Quixote jousted with when he really went off his rocker!! Perched on the hillside just at the back of the town they are quite a sight to see. Even though we didn't set off that early we still beat most of the Spanish tourists and the coaches there. We were on the way back for a siesta by lunch time. 

Right Rocinante, on to battle!!

Great views from the hill top

Next was a run across the hot Spanish plains and north to Santiago de Compostela.

Andorra and into Spain

The ride on the Sunday was an easy 120km down to Carcassone. We stopped for a coffee in Cordes-sur-Ciel and arrived early in Carcassone. Check in time was also thankfully early and after parking the bike around the back of the hotel under lock and key we wandered of to have a look around one of the most “knights and castles” places that you can imagine.

Luckily the majority of the daytime tourists had left and we enjoyed a comfortable evening and dinner before returning to the hotel to find the bike had company of around another seven, or eight bikes from Germany.

Monday’s run into Andorra was another short day but the scenery got better and better as we climbed up into the Pyrenees Mountains. This was my first visit to this Principality and although great if you are looking for duty free alcohol, cigarettes, petrol (around 25 stations along the main road into town) or any other kind of electrical device from camera’s, computers to tazers!! I think other than a winter skiing vacation I won’t be coming back too soon.

Spectacular ride in

Tuesday was another short 120km day into Spain to the Parador in Cardona. During the 1970’s the Spanish government took over a lot of the old castles and grand houses in Spain and converted them into luxury hotels. The one we had chosen was a castle set on to of a hill. Thankfully like most places we parked the bike fairly close to the entrance and enjoyed a huge room and dinner that evening.

The Parador (old castle) set on top of the hill

Very medieval !!

All the Paradors serve a variety of the local dishes of the area. I had the stuffed Guinea Fowl. Very nice.

As we have come down through Spain the temperature has slowly risen to the high thirty’s, as expected. What was a surprise were the roads, especially from Teruel to Cuenca. I think I can safely say that this road would rank with the best motorcycle riding roads in the world. Good road with lots of bends and great scenery. 

Albarracin town start of a great ride through the sierras

By the time we got to Toledo we were baking in the mid afternoon sun and desperate to get to our Hotel. Once again we scored not only with it being in the heart of the old city but when asked where was the best place to park the bike the reply came “just park it outside the door. Perfect!!

Paris to the Tarn district

I left Claire and Fontenay on the next Sunday morning after a week of odd jobs and larger ones with me lending a hand to Polo to pull down the ceiling in the living room and putting up a new one. Traffic around the outside of Paris was light and remained so for the rest of the day. It gave me a chance to get back into the travelling frame of mind. Just before lunch I thought I felt something rough in the driveline but it seemed to disappear and I forgot about it. I made good time and arrived in Guere by two o’clock. Unfortunately the check in didn’t open until five!! The downside of Sunday afternoon in France is that there is nothing open, so I headed for McDonnalds (always open!) to waste as much time as I could. The poor weather that I had encountered in the afternoon was still hanging around the next morning as I chatted to the Belgium quartet on Harleys that had also stayed there. Luckily it dissipated as I got through the massif central mountains and continued south west down into the Tarn region. I got to Pear Tree Cottage at around three in the afternoon to join my Mum and my Sister for the next two weeks to relax and enjoy some of the wonderful sights there are in that region.







During the thirteenth century the kings of France and England built “new” fortified towns or “Bastides” in the Tarn region laid out to a plan of streets to a grid pattern with a central market place. These medieval towns were built on hills and surrounded with defendable walls. All this means that they were sturdy and still survive today and as such are a delightful window into what it must have been like to live in those times. Towns such as Cordes-sur-Ciel and Najac have occupied most of our time as the weather has steadily got better with the European summer suggesting that it may have finally arrived??









On one of the first days I decided to do a little maintenance on the bike and after adjusting and lubricating the chain noticed that there was a fair amount of play in the brake side of the rear wheel. It only took a moment to decide that it would not make sense to risk continuing on to Spain with it like that, especially considering that all the hotels are booked and we are going to be on a fairly tight schedule. So with that in mind I sought out the local Yamaha dealer “Warmup Moto” in Albi and over the weekend they managed to procure a full set of bearings and have the work done by the Tuesday afternoon. Great service with a smile and at the 200 euros I had expected.



Next step is that Claire will join me on Friday and on Sunday we will start to head for Carcassone and then the Pyrenees and a couple of nights in the principality of Andorra.