L2L Day 22 - Pamplona to Estella

 Today folks is what we call an active recovery day.  That is, after a super difficult day yesterday, today we tamed it down quite a bit, but we still made some progress on our route.  We only rode about 30 miles, but climbed 2700 ft, which is actually quite a bit in that distance.  We spotted some olive trees today - a first for myself.  I absolutely love olives, but I've never actually seen an olive tree until today!

I'll tell you, Pamplona is really a beautiful city - vibrant, nice people, has a university, etc.  I think the lifestyle is very, satisfying.  Also, the small town we rode into - Estella.  Well, it's also wonderful, small, cozy.  Alex booked a hostel for us tonight, but it has twin beds - private room with our own bathroom and shower.  Also they have laundry machines here as well.  All this for about $70 euros (breakfast included).  We are right on a river.  This is literally the best hotel/hostel deal, I've ever come across in my life!  You be the judge with the pics below!

L2L Day 21 - Saint-Jean-Pier-de-Port to Pamplona

 Alex and I slayed the Pyrenees.  They are beautiful and they are challenging.  When you resolve yourself to the fact that you will be traveling at 3mph and just let that happen, it really makes the 10-15% grade easier - or at least doable.  About midway up the pass, you start to encounter cows, sheep and horses.  On the Spain side there was mostly sheep.  It was also a bit chilly, but since were were climbing for several hours, the temps didn't bother us at all.

We finished the day with I believe 6850 ft ascent over just under 70 miles.  We were exhausted, as expected, but very satisfied with the ride and the day.  We observed that:

    - In France, unpaved roads are almost always actually paved
    - In Spain, unpaved roads are NOT paved.  In fact, probably a mountain bike is required on many unpaved roads in Spain.

Because of the super tough gravel roads, we chose to make some on-the-fly modifications to our route towards the end of the day.

Please tune in again tomorrow :)