Not the Camino
 

Cycle touring in Southern France, Spain and Northern Portugal

Words & photos: Don Morrisey

My partner Nicola and I last went cycle touring in Spain and Portugal in the mid-1980s. In those days, travelling by air with a bike involved riding to the airport, wheeling it up to the oversize-luggage counter, turning the handlebars sideways and the pedals inwards, and letting some air out of the tyres. Despite the lack of protective packaging, it usually emerged unharmed at the other end, ready to be loaded up and pedalled away. In contrast, when we took our steel-framed Surly touring bikes to France, Spain and Portugal in 2024, we had to pack them in cardboard bike boxes, which required considerably more dismantling (front wheel, handlebars, pedals, seat-post and pannier rack) and then find a way to get them to the airport. Because we knew that we would need to put the bikes in bags to take them on the high-speed train from the airport in Paris to Avignon in the south of France, we first put the disassembled bikes into Dogsbody travel bags and put the bag and bike into the box, along with odds and ends (helmet, hiking tent) to make up the baggage limit of 23kg (we ditched the boxes at Paris airport).

Paris airport, “Of course it will fit in the lift”.

Getting the bike boxes from the luggage collection point through immigration, onto and off the shuttle train between terminals and down to the train station was a very tedious process, not least because baggage trolleys can’t be taken on parts of the route. It wasn’t until we left the station at Avignon that we could reassemble the bikes and start riding. I mention all this not (just) because at my age it’s my duty to grumble about how things were better in the past, but in case the information is useful to others and to contrast the inconveniences of air travel with the simple enjoyment of riding the bikes once you get there.

Avignon, once the seat of popes and site of the famous bridge, was a great place to recover from the flight. From there, our original plan was to ride through the gorges of the Cevennes, southwest to the historic cities of Béziers, Narbonne and Carcassonne, pick up the Canal des 2 Mers westwards, then join up with the Camino de Santiago at Mont-de-Marsan and follow it over the Pyrenees into Spain. The first part went out of the window when we lost confidence in our ability to begin the tour with steep climbs out of deep river gorges on loaded touring bikes and discovered that we had chosen to start during a public holiday when the roads were packed with cars and campervans. Instead, we stayed further south, then looped through the Minervois region to Carcassonne and the canal.

Surly Pont D’Avignon, just like the song says. Yes, we really did stop here for the sake of a weak joke.

After a couple of days on the canal however, the tow paths became rather boring and were often too narrow to pass dog walkers and other cyclists. Instead, a second deviation took us north via a long, but relatively traffic-free, climb over the Montagne Noire to Albi, with its extraordinary fortress-like cathedral, built of brick (supposedly the largest brick building in the world) and riotously painted inside. After stopping at Moissac to see its glorious Romanesque abbey, and passing through Agen, famous for its prunes – a valuable snack on a hot, dehydrating bike tour, we followed EuroVelo Route 3 (EV3) into Mont-de-Marsan. Known as the Pilgrim’s Route, the EV3 was quite busy even in late May, with cyclists and walkers heading for Santiago de Compostela. Accommodation became increasingly difficult to find, and the route more crowded, as the pilgrimage routes converge on the main Pyrenean crossing point at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. This led to our third change of plan, travelling further west through the French Basque country and crossing into Spain from the thermal resort of Cambo-les-Bains.

The fortress-like exterior of the cathedral in Albi.

After a steady climb of 600m to a summit scattered with military bunkers from the civil war and World War II, we coasted down the other side and off on a smaller road to the Basque town of Eratzu in the Baztan Valley. There is a lovely campsite just outside the town, which we had virtually to ourselves, and we spent a day exploring the surrounding hills of this beautiful, green region – hiking through beech and oak woods, and fields studded with orchids and other wildflowers. The amazing diversity and abundance of birds and wildflowers throughout southern France and Spain is one of my strongest memories from this trip.

Waiting for breakfast at Elizondo in the Spanish Basque country.

The route onwards followed the old road to Pamplona – now superseded by a motorway – zigzagging up the hills through a series of hairpins. Unfortunately, after a few kilometres the motorway traffic was diverted back onto the old road because of work on a tunnel. This meant we were followed up the hill by a stream of cars and huge semi-trailers that were too big to take the bends without crossing the centre line and so had to wait for gaps in the downhill traffic. Their drivers were very polite and patient when waiting for a chance to overtake us, and we obviously kept well back from any turning trucks, but it was a very nervous ride to the top of the ridge.

Pamplona offered a great opportunity to eat something other than pasta and sauce, with a 3-course meal at a vegetarian restaurant. It also has the outstanding Museo de Navarra, with a collection of stunning Romanesque carvings from the old cloister of the cathedral. Its tiny figures are carved in such detail that even the creases on their knuckles were visible. On our way out of the city the next day we passed what seemed to be a huge housing development, stalled after the streets were laid out and now used as a parking area for hundreds of camper vans, presumably waiting for the high season to start.

Museo de Navarra, Pamplona: carved capital showing the biblical trials of Job, boils and all.

After riding on to Estella, we put the bikes into their bags, took a bus on to Logroño, and rode to a campsite just beyond. Weather had been a typical spring mixture so far, with days of warm sunshine interspersed with cold (less than 10C), wet days (and colder nights). On this occasion, we put up the tent just as a torrential downpour began. With thunder and lightning directly overhead, the temperature plummeted and we withdrew to the campsite bar in the company of several Dutch cyclists to pass the evening. Just before we left home, I had thrown our shoe covers into the bike box, thinking that we’d never need them in France and Spain in late spring and early summer. Well, yes…they got quite a lot of use.

From Logroño we followed EV3 for a while, heading for Burgos. The explosion in the popularity of the Camino de Santiago is amazing. Every village along our route had a string of guest houses, hostels, Airbnbs, etc., catering to walkers and every morning as we set off we could see a string of figures heading up the path towards the horizon. Campsites, however, were less common. We generally cycled on the road, rather than the gravel camino path, because it was sealed and therefore faster, and we didn’t have to keep asking walkers to let us past.

We spent several days in Burgos because it has so much to see, including a huge, new museum of evolution (focussing partly on the nearby archaeological site of Atapuerca, source of the earliest evidence of the genus Homo in Europe), a magnificent cathedral and two beautiful monasteries. It also has a very good campsite, easy to bike to and from the centre of Burgos. On our final day we took the bikes to the station, put them back in their bags and caught the high-speed train to Mérida via Madrid. Loading the bikes at Burgos was easy, the station staff were very helpful and there were baggage trolleys to wheel the bikes and panniers out to the platform. On board, the train manager showed us an alcove where we could store them. Ironically it was fitted with hooks for hanging bikes up, but this is not permitted on the express trains, they must be bagged!

Transiting through Madrid was by contrast a nightmare. Baggage on high-speed trains must be security-screened and though our train arrived into the secure area of the station in Madrid, it was unclear whether the train on to Mérida went from inside or outside the area. None of the numerous passenger advisors around the station seemed to know, nor did they know which platform it would go from. Platforms are usually announced five minutes or so before the train arrives, which leads to lots of running around by passengers dashing up and down stairs and along the underpass to the other side of the huge station before their train leaves again. Having two bagged bikes, four panniers and a front-roll to carry made this even more challenging, especially as the station had no baggage trolleys. Needless to say, our platform was at the furthest end of the underpass off which the stairs to the platforms led. One advantage of stressful situations like this is that you tend not to care about correct procedures, so we dragged the bikes onto the train, left them by the door and waited for the train manager to say, “You can’t leave them there, follow me”, which generally worked.

Mérida is an extraordinary city, with stunning Roman building scattered throughout and an aqueduct on the outskirts. The Roman theatre is used for plays and concerts to this day, and an event was being set up as we wandered around. We asked at the theatre ticket office who was playing that night, and it turned out to be those giants of 1970s rock, Status Quo (kids, ask your parents). By now it was mid-June, day-time temperatures had settled into the low 30sC, and mist-sprays had been set up along the streets of the city centre to provide cooling. A helpful bike shop owner fixed Nicola’s rear derailleur, which had been bent during the train journey.

Roman theatre at Mérida: having survived the assault of the Visigoths, next it’s Status Quo.

Heading north from Mérida, we joined the Camino Ruta Via de la Plata, which runs from Seville to Santiago, passing through the cities of Cáceres, Salamanca and Zamora. The route follows a Roman road, and the name apparently derives not from the Spanish for ‘silver’ (‘plata’) but the Arabic for ‘cobbled paving’ (‘al-balat’), referring to the stone paving used by the Romans. In places the original Roman distance markers, 2m tall stone columns, are still in place, evoking all those who have travelled this way over the past two thousand years. Extremadura is classic central Spain, with rolling hills covered in wheat and sunflowers, cork oak forests, black bulls and black pigs, from which the best hams are made. The region is also known for its diverse bird fauna and at one campsite we sat by the swimming pool while both black and griffon vultures circled disturbingly close overhead.

Broken Roman distance marker beside the Via de la Plata, western Spain.

From Zamora in Spain, we crossed west over the mountains into Portugal, to the hilltop city of Braganca and along the southern border of the Parque Natural de Montesinho to Vinhais, Chaves and Braga, northeast of Porto. This is a region we had visited several times in the 1980s, including by bicycle, and while much remains the same, some details have changed as Portugal’s standard of living has risen. For example, we didn’t encounter any carts drawn by oxen on the back roads and few, if any, of the old stone houses (where the family lived upstairs above the stable for the livestock so that their heat warmed the living area) are still occupied. In the hills northeast of Braga, we stayed at a campsite beside a dam on the River Rabagão and spent the evening with the owner and the only two other guests watching Portugal get knocked out of the Euros football tournament, commiserating over a couple of bottles of fantastic Douro wine, cake and coffee. The owner refused any payment for the drink and food, but I left some cash on the bar so that he wouldn’t actually end up out of pocket from our visit.

From Braga we headed north inland to the beautiful valleys of the Rivers Lima and Minho. This area has certainly changed since we last visited, with far more tourists than 40 years ago, but you can still find local fairs where you can eat grilled sardines and sausages and drink bowls of red and white vinho verde from the barrel.

The Minho forms the northern border between Portugal and Spain, and we followed it upstream to Ourense. From there we climbed northwest through oak and chestnut woodland along the River Sil, a tributary of the Minho, to a campsite overlooking the spectacular Cañón de Sil. There are several half-ruined Romanesque monasteries scattered through the woods lining the canyon, accessible by footpath from the campsite. From the uplands above the Sil gorge there was an extremely steep descent on narrow roads to cross a hydro dam to a major road. We followed this east towards the city of Ponferrada, named for the iron reinforcements added to its 11th century bridge, built to allow pilgrims to cross the Sil. Just before Ponferrada the road passed through a series of long tunnels, which Komoot failed to warn us about. It was permitted to cycle through them but very scary, with the sound of vehicles bouncing off the tunnel walls and making it impossible to tell if the traffic was coming towards us or from behind.

We were now back on EV3 and the pilgrim route but heading away from Santiago into the oncoming stream of walkers. Saying ‘buen camino’ to every group we passed became a bit of a chore after the first day but on the plus side, the route passes an endless series of beautiful Romanesque churches and monasteries and lovely towns and villages. The next major town, Astorga, had an astonishing bishop’s palace designed by Antoni Gaudí, which is considerably more interesting than the unremarkable Gothic/Renaissance cathedral next door (the bishop who commissioned it, a friend of Gaudí, died before it was completed). Our route continued east to León with its gothic cathedral containing some of the best medieval stained glass in Europe, and the Romanesque Basilica of San Isidoro with stunning 12th century murals. The huge 16-18th century, elaborately carved Convent of San Marcos is now a stunning and luxurious hotel. We stayed in it for a night many years ago and the carpark was full of vintage racing Bentleys belonging to members of a British car club – a whole fleet of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bangs (again, kids ask your parents). I suppose if you can afford to own a vintage Bentley you can afford to stay in luxury hotels when you are on tour.

Crossing the Camino path east of Ponferrada, after 16km of uphill.

After León we followed EV3 back to Burgos, staying on the way at the Hotel Real Monasterio San Zoilo in Carrión de los Condes, a former Benedictine monastery from the 10-18th centuries and now beautifully restored, to celebrate Nicola’s birthday. By now the weather was in the mid-30s during the afternoon but streams of walkers were still heading west with nearly 500km to Santiago. We left the EV3 in Burgos and headed northeast to Bilbao to spend a few days in the city and then catch the ferry to Portsmouth in the UK before our 90-day allowance in the EU ran out. We had imagined that it would be a hilly ride through the Cantabrian Mountains, but the cycle route follows an old railway line through a gap in the hills.

The whole trip covered around 3,200km and was done on steel-framed Surly Ogre touring bikes. We carried clothing, camping and cooking gear in a front roll, frame pack and two rear panniers. Accommodation was mainly camping but we used hostels, guesthouses and Airbnb apartments where no camping was available (many campsites did not open until June or seemed to have closed during Covid) or when the weather was particularly wet. A big shout out to my indefatigable Ground Effect Supertankers, which came out of the trip looking as good as new, have since done another trip of similar length, and are still going strong. With those, and a well worn-in Brooks leather saddle, I never bother with padded liners. I took a couple of cycling tops but ended up riding most of the time in my Baked Alaska, washing it every couple of days. It dried quickly or could be put on damp to dry en route and, as far as I could tell, never seemed to smell (other opinions are available….).