Days 14 & 15: Tarragona and Lyon

Another day of great weather! We made some last minute changes in our route so that we could drive along the coast, and that turned out to be an interesting choice :) At first it was beautiful. We found another very rich part of Spain - yachts, expensive cars, and beautiful houses built into the hills with great views of the water. That area was a lot of fun to see!

Tempting to just stay here

The roads we saw had some really cool construction!

We were totally lovin' the drive, and then things started to get a little weird. We were driving through orange fields, which we were used to, but we started to see VERY scantily dressed women. Oh yes, there were prostitutes ALL along this really long stretch of road through nothing but orange tree fields! Odd.

We made it to Valencia around lunch time, so Bri found a cool restaurant on the water where he humored me with one last paella. It was so nice to sit out in the sun!

The rest of the afternoon, the views weren't the best, but we made great time and had no trouble finding our hotel in Tarragona. It was a nice hotel, and we were really excited about the "free mini bar", which turned out to only be a water and a soda. Haha! We ventured out and found the harbor that had a bunch of restaurants where Brian indulged in a very manly drink :)

I liked the paper strawberry on the straw

He cracks me up! For dinner we had a shrimp and avocado salad with some calamari, which was all tasty. We had found a yummy looking gelato shop before dinner, but it was closed by the time we were done with dinner! Boo. I don't handle the unfulfilled anticipation of ice cream products well, but I somehow managed to get by :)

*Personal note: the government furlough was huge on TV at this point in our trip. We had no idea what would happen or what we were supposed to do if the furlough happened, but we briefly contemplated going back to a couple of the places we had visited!

The next morning, we had breakfast at a small cafe a couple of doors down from the hotel. Fresh squeezed OJ and pastries always hit the spot. We made another route change today. In light of the previous day's lack of impressive views on the coastal road, we decided to head to the mountains today. EXCELLENT choice. We saw gorgeous canyons and rock formations!

Around noon, we stopped at what appeared to be a regular ol' gas station to fill up. When I went inside to explore, I found a cool restaurant out back with a great view! So we decided to take a break and eat a potato sandwich with grilled veggies. I was so surprised by how good it was! I was expecting gas station food :)

Gas station lunch view

Mmm - potato sandwich

After lunch, the views continued with all kinds of cool architecture and impressive mountains.

Our next stop was at a little cafe that overlooked a valley and cute little town. While I was in the cafe, this little girl with huge blue eyes and blonde curls came up to me and started speaking French. Cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. I wanted to take her home with me. At that point I decided I want my kids to learn French :)

Man, that was a beautiful day. We saw so many cool forts and castles. You know you're on a good road when you see tons of antique cars and luxury cars cruisin' around. They were everywhere!

With two hours left in our drive, we stopped at another gas station that had an impressive view of this fort built into the rock of this hill (it's on the right side of the picture).

We arrived in Lyon around 8 and went to dinner at a brasserie that was across the street from our hotel. It was a really beautiful restaurant with great food. We both had a braided roast that was served in a delicious morel mushroom marinade. The waiter recommended a local specialty for dessert, which was a tart with cream. We loved it! As we were finishing our wine, we noticed the couple next to us ordered 3 desserts, and they devoured the creme brulee. So we decided to try that as well, and we were quite impressed! It was the lightest creme brulee we had ever had. After such a huge dinner, we took a walk around the city, and then we slept really well that night!

Day 13: Beaches and Mountains

For breakfast, we enjoyed the largest buffet breakfast we had ever seen! Seriously, there were 5 different stations, each about the size of a decent sized breakfast on its own. Anyway, once we sat down, we couldn't stop laughing and making jokes because we were literally the only 2 people in this huge cafeteria that didn't have white hair! I wish I had taken a picture, because I know you don't believe me. I don't know how this hotel had established such an age-specific clientele, but they had done a great job at it.

As usual, after breakfast, we headed up and moved on out! We started on the highway, which was pretty but quite busy. So we broke away from that to ride on the coastal road. We had great weather, and the water sure was beautiful!

Then we turned inland toward the mountains. The terrain became more like a desert as we drove toward the Sierra Nevada. The mountain roads kept us very entertained with their gorge-ous views and winding roads.

Glad we weren't here when this landslide happened!

There were lots of sections of the road that looked like this.

For lunch we stopped at a small mountain restaurant that smelled like corndogs, which made me crave corndogs, but of course they didn't have corndogs in the Spanish mountain boonies. Bri had a specialty of the area - a sausage breakfast lunch - and I had a salad and a ham and noodle soup.

Later in the day, we came across a TON of bees! They were everywhere, and we were both stung by stingers that had gotten stuck in our riding gear. Yow!

We enjoyed more amazing coastal roads - the best we had seen by far. It was so remote and the water was sooo blue, and there were lots of pretty white developments.

Cool bridge hidden in the cliff by the water

It took us forever to find our hotel that night. We were staying at a newer hotel, which was nice, but the signage wasn't quite established. So we drove around for about 20 minutes (which after a full day of driving, 20 minutes is a long time!) and then tried to call the hotel to figure out where it is. The front desk lady was so funny - she couldn't convey where they were located and then got frustrated and hung up on us! When we finally found the hotel, we enjoyed drinks and dinner at the hotel and relaxed the rest of the evening!

Days 11 & 12: Southern Portugal

We packed up our clean clothes (yay!) and made one last pastry stop in Lisbon. Mine was delicious, but poor Bri accidentally got one with chorizo in it - ew! As we got on the road, we had a pretty route planned, but we really wanted to get to the beach quickly. So we rode on the highway the entire way, and it was SUPER windy that day! On a motorcycle, wind is WAY worse than rain, so it wasn't the most fun ride. And because of the wind, our allergies really started acting up, so we stopped at a local pharmacy to get some "Claritine". It definitely helped!

For lunch we had sandwiches at an Intermarche, which is a chain grocery store. Brian got some more Jordan almonds for dessert, and we continued on to our hotel. When we arrived, we quickly figured out that our beach day was not going to go as we had hoped. It was super cloudy and the wind was CRAZY!

To make the most of our time on the coast, we went on a long walk along the cliffs.

We made it to a little harbor, so we stopped at a bar for sangria and took shelter from the major winds! Then we walked further and found a bar right on the beach that was empty and had a great view of the huge waves (obvious result of the gusty atmosphere). We sat and talked and relaxed and just enjoyed the view!

When it was time for dinner, we asked the front desk for a restaurant recommendation, and the lady suggested a place that we found but it was closed! Nice. So we continued down the road and found a great hotel restaurant. I guess our hotel didn't want to suggest that we give another hotel business? Oh well, at least we found a good place! We each had the catch of the day (sea bass) with veggies and potatoes and Douro white wine. It was a really tasty, refreshing dinner.

That night we didn't sleep well at all! The winds just got worse through the night, and the hotel sounded like it was breathing. It was squeaking and creaking and moaning - it was so loud! We just kept thinking, is the bike going to tip over? What happens if it blows over and is damaged? Sleepless nights are no fun!

The next morning, we had breakfast at our hotel's coffee shop. We really needed coffee after that night! And, I had a life-changing morning - I tried a banana :) I've always hated bananas, but I really wanted a piece of fruit, and that's all the hotel had. So I grew up, gave it a shot and actually liked it! Anyway, we quickly loaded the bike and hit the road. Our first stop was at a car wash to spray off the bike. It was completely covered in sea salt and bug guts from the day before, and it was beyond disgusting. So Brian got it all clean and ready for another day! He fits into the Corley family well :)

We rode to Alvor, a cute town that had awesome beach cliffs. We had found the town in some books we perused the day before at a little tourist shop, and so we had made plans to stop through. However, we really had no idea where to go once we got to Alvor other than towards the water. Brian found this really cool, remote, sandy trail that led us directly to some great views of the ocean.

We had a great time exploring the coast, but then it was time to get on the highway and make some tracks. The highway was very enjoyable today because of all of the fresh orange tree smells! They were in full bloom and smelled so sweet.

For lunch, we stopped in Seville, Spain. And it was 90 degrees! Woohoo for heat!

Driving into Seville, we saw lots of cool buildings and architecture

Bri continued in his excellent navigation record (even with crazy one way roads) and found a deli/ice cream parlor with a parking spot for the bike by a table that was right next to a cathedral and a castle! We had great sandwiches and shared an ice cream dessert that had toasted ice cream on top. It was kind of a nerve-wracking lunch, though, because we had several people warn us about our motorcycle gear getting stolen, even though we were literally sitting right next to the bike. We kept an eye out while we ate, just in case.

Sights in Seville

From Seville, we took a great road to Ronda, Spain that wound through farm hills, sunny green pastures, and beautiful mountains.

After Ronda, it was a little windy, but we had some of the best mountain scenery that was complimented by strong smells of pine. It was so refreshing.

As we were leaving the mountains, we saw some of the most gorgeous mansions. I felt like we were in a luxurious part of California. I didn't get any pictures of the mansions, but here's what the view looked like as we drove along the coast.

Once we reached the coastal towns where we planned to stay, we were quite disappointed with what we found. The towns along the water were pretty junky and just felt trashy. We hadn't booked a hotel for the night - we had figured it would be easy to find one at the beach. There were plenty of vacancies, but the hotels were disgusting and loud and were not cheap. Around 9pm, we finally ended our search for a place to stay. We settled on a quiet hotel that was clean and had a safe parking garage for the bike. The catch to this hotel - seriously, ALL of the residents were age 60 and up. We thought it was hilarious!

Even though there was an older customer base, the view was still nice!

It was late, but we still hadn't had dinner, so we washed up and walked around the area looking for a place to grab some food (obviously our hotel restaurant had been closed since 7pm - haha). We ended up eating at the Fat Fajita, a Mexican food restaurant in Spain that was showing British soccer, had Australian waiters, and had American flags on the table cloths! This random restaurant in combination with our elderly hotel made for one hysterical night. We had fajitas at the Fat Fajita, and they were alright :) After dinner, we went back to our hotel and crashed!

The Fat Fajita