Aragon Day 1

An uneventful day. Well,  not strictly true, as the weather was eventful in itself. Peeing down from the moment I woke, it didn't let up till after lunch. At one point, we had thunder and lightning and the roads awash. A van overtaking created a bow wave that engulfed us, the volume of water was that bad.

During this tremendous downpour,  we stopped for lunch at a service station,  commandeering a 6 place table to deposit our dripping wet gear. It was still peeing down when we left.

It wasn't all bad though. We did have a dry and warm spell, about 90 minutes, where the temperature reached 27 degrees. Sadly we wouldn't see out the day in the dry, as by the time we reached Tours and our hotel, it was hammering down again.

For me, it was just the wet that marred my first day. For Paul,  it started with him leaving his wash bag at home, and ended with the sole of his right boot coming adrift. Half adrift to be precise. So tomorrow morning, we shall be looking for a bike shop, to seek replacement boots.

It was a long day and we didn't arrive at the hotel till 18:45. As seems the norm these days, we got THE booking.com room, i.e. the one furthest from reception. It's uncanny the number of times that has been the case. Once in the room, we pretty much got changed and went up the road for dinner. The nearest place was an Italian place, so we had pizza and gelato, washed down with 2 large Pelforth blondes. That's beers, not ladies! 😉 Though there were some large ladies in the restaurant!

Tomorrow we are heading for Orthez. Despite the Spanish sounding name, it is actually in France. The forecast , looks like being similar to today unfortunately. We can't control the weather though, so we'll just have to make the best of whatever mother nature throws at us.