Well, the good news is I finally get to ride and take pictures as I like, not hampered by having to use maps with strange names, relegating me to main roads, and wasting my time looking for lodging, etc. In short, I got back to France as fast as I could and fired up the GPS. I can promise, if it had fired up and shown blank areas where France should be I'd have sent it flying to the road shoulder at 80+ mph, or sent it back to Garmin (now one of my least favorite companies) tied to a brick! But it didn't, so I didn't, and we are back in each other's good graces (sort of). Next time I won't assume it has the maps I want, I'll check to make sure. I still don't understand what happened. I downloaded the maps for Spain, Italy, Germany, Belguim, etc. when I downloaded the France maps.
France came up when I fired it up so I assumed the other maps had made it, as well. We know what that "assume" means, don't we? Well, the net result is I missed a bunch of places I would have liked to have seen...and saw a couple I would have missed. We're not even by a mile...but, hey, feces occurs.
One of my goals for this trip was to see the famous Basicila of the Sacred Family in Barcelona. My plans were to duck back into Barcelona this morning, having written down the instructions from the internet last night. But first, I needed cash. You see, Spain is the toll road capital of the world. Between Valencia and Barcelona, they hit me for something like 30€. Between Santiago De Compostela and the Portuguese border, they got me for another 29€, plus others along the way. The last time I saw that many outstretched brown-skinned hands was in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico in 1964. But that was another place and another time.
In any event, I asked at the hotel desk where I could locate a "hand me" bank. The desk clerk kindly hand-wrote me a map which I put into the map "screen" of my tank bag and followed to the letter. Unfortunately, it didn't lead to a bank. It leads to an industrial park where I assumed, he failed to denote the second "traffic circle." Have I mentioned that I've had one or two problems with the traffic circle thingy? Actually, I like them...but we've had our moments.
So, I now spend about 45 minutes trying to find a bank in some cuidat centre. (See, that's why high-school Spanish flunks...I thought it was cuidad.)
FINALLY, I do find one and get some money so I can pay the fines...uh, tolls...back to Barcelona so I can see the famous Basicila. But I don't. As had happened so many time on this trip I'm so tired of trying to find something I decide to hell with it; I'll see if I can find France. I could. And I did. And I turned on the GPS and it found something other than a blank spot on the planet and so now I could go. And I did.
A few miles out of Barcelona the Pyrenees make their presence known
Sorry Jamey, I didn't find the cloth-covered table to sit outside under the branches of a Centenarian tree in western Spain. Blew through too fast. Hope this'll do. I passed this old Brasseria on a two-lane road to the foothills of the Pyrenees and decided I needed a cup of coffee.
There were a couple of old dogs lazing around when I pulled in. One was eating grass when I drove up. I've always thought that was a sign of a dog being sick, so I mentioned it to the lady who ran the restaurant. She said, (in French, basically) "No, she do that to purge herself." This was where I would have said (in French, if I could) "Yeah, that's sort of what I meant which I said your dog was eating grass." But what the heck. The dog finally lay down on the grass instead of eating it, so I guess everything was okay.
Kilroy was here...and enjoyed the coffee.
On my way to?
How many folks know the source of the "Friday the 13th" phobia? It has a basis in history. On Friday, the 13th of October 1307, Charles the IV of France, in conjunction Pope Clement V (need I say conspiracy), arrested all members of the Knights Templar within his reach (France). And he had a pretty good reach. His goal? Money and power, of course. He owed huge sums to the Knights Templar and, when asked by the Pope to investigate some rumors, to that point not taken seriously, about the order's rituals, he jumped at the opportunity to do away with debt by discharging the lenders, as opposed to the debt.
Since the days of the first crusades, the Knights had had special dispensation from Papal authority. They began as simple guardians, protecting pilgrims journeying to visit holy sites in Israel. Over time, they started taking money on deposit at the beginning of the journeys and returning it, in-kind, at the end. This, obviously, deterred the many thieves along the way and made life easier for the pilgrims. Naturally, the Knights charged a fee for this service, just as American Express does for its travelers' checks today. Over time, the Knights, as is usual for bankers, in those days and these, became extremely powerful. They, in fact, were the international banking conglomerate of the dark ages. They performed extremely rigorous religious rituals, all, in their view, in the service of God, while, at the same time, providing "protection" for various villages and small landowners/dukedoms, what have you. I think this protection often took the form of Vito Corleone in Brooklyn a few hundred years later: "Hey, you, pay, and we're pretty sure no bad things will happen to you; don't pay, and you just never know." For the movie fans out there, these are the same guys that Tom Hanks was searching in their sanctuaries for clues in the The DaVinci Code.
So...so far this has all been good history. Provable fact. Now the hoaxes and conspiracy theories take over...and this is where we are going. The Rennes-le-Cháteau.
At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a priest who "found" funding to build several churches and remodel others in the area. Rumors, seemingly started by a restaurant owner in the 1950s, hinted that the lowly priest had found the hidden treasure of the Templars. This much is historically accurate: no one knows what happened to the Templar treasures. And they had to be huge. Charles discharged his debt by killing the lenders, but, according to history neither he, nor the Pope, ever got their hands on the Templar treasury. The priest, though, was later found guilty of selling masses to gain his wealth, though calculations would later yield he would have had to sell something like twenty (20) per day for the over twenty-five (25) years he was a priest in the region to have had the sum of money he was "caught" with in 1910. This part of the story remains a mystery. Where did the money come from? Ed Bradley of '60 Minutes' concluded fraud...but the math doesn't work all that well. But the marketing in the 1950s, and since, have. (See Rennes-le-Cháteau)
Note: I was going to take that picture you first see on this page but decided the tower was just "too new."
When I arrived at the Chateau, I met the current owner of the "village," chateau, and restaurant. She was walking with some newly arrived friends and couldn't believe my motorcycle came all the way from Texas. She is German, but speaks very good English and was a nice lady. I had a great beer in the restaurant outside area and wished I wasn't riding so I could have more.
Some great scenery on the way to the Cháteau.
Now here's the part where I demonstrate why one needs a working GPS. I have a map of France and, coming in from Barcelona, there just aren't any good routes shown. My GPS told me to turn right on this street in this little berg stuck out in the middle of no-damn-where-France.
I turned right, as instructed.
At the end of that street I was told to turn right again and when I hit the end of this street, turn left.
I defy you to make this happen with a paper map!
Clearing the town I find myself on this lovely little road heading into the foothills.
The big moutain in the background conjured up images to me.
It looked like an Orca sounding out of a green sea.
(At least to me...and at this time I'd had no recreational beverages.)
Then we started climbing and climbing.
The big aqueduct-looking thing is actually the path of the road I'm going to be taking.
After a few more twisties...neat twisties. Then you top out and look at the valley below.
Twenty-two kilometers yet to go (13.6 Miles)
And then we're at the top. At the Cháteau, looking out over its valley.
I have a much-needed beer in the outdoor area of the restaurant.
And visit the church just outside the Cháteau.
A little walk down by the old Cháteau's side.
Imagine the people from all the old times who have walked on these steps.
The walls of the old Cháteau.
I then pulled out for Toulouse and arrived here about 5:30pm finding a hotel rather quickly since my GPS knew (almost) where it was.
Had a great evening. The weather is just fantastic, about 72 degrees F. and not a cloud in the sky. I had a great little light meal sitting outside reading my Kindle and sipping a little wine. This was absolutely the best day of the trip so far.
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