Girona

I’ve just returned from four days cycling, five nights in Girona.

I originally booked and paid for this in November 2019 for April 2020 with my club but due to Covid etc. I finally arrived in the city last week for a keenly anticipated trip.

Many of my cycling trips are with riding mates or with my two sons but this time I took my non-cycling wife with me. Girona is a beautiful city with plenty to do and she was more than happy to occupy herself during the day and meet up in the afternoon for a late lunch/early dinner so there was no guilt factor about enjoying myself while she was home alone. We also bolted 3 nights in Barcelona onto the trip so the lovely Mrs Idle is more than happy with me for the time being.

The club used The Service Course as guides for the week. I will often ride self-guided but it was great having the guides on hand for their local knowledge to make the ride run smoothly e.g. where are the best coffee stops en route, should we head up this mountain or that mountain depending on expected rain forecasts etc. (we never did get caught in any rain but it was useful anyway).

Highlights of the week in no particular order were:

• The Rocacorba & Els Angels climbs
  
• The coastal road from Tossa de Mar to Sant Feliu (again a guiding bonus was knowing which direction to ride this to make sure you are on the seaward side of the road for the best views)
  
• Having lunch at Ashley Moolman-Pasio’s beautiful 17th century villa and getting to say hello to her as well as the GCN team who were shooting a feature while we were there
  
• A guided walk around the old town with the non-cycling guide pointing out the apartment where Big Tex used to stay during his time there
  
  

The only slight disappointment was that after two year’s delay and having heard so much about Girona in the interim I was expecting to bump into pro-cyclists or ex-pros (David Millar et al) around every corner. This didn’t happen but it was clearly a cycling city with loads of top end cycle shops with plenty of bike pron to view, new kit to buy and lycra-clad riders on expensive bikes swanning around all the coffee shops.

The guides confirmed that in terms of roads to ride we had barely scratched the surface during the four days and as @hippy confimed on another thread the whole area is also teeming with gravel trails. For various reasons I had decided on road but others in the group were gravelling and were very effusive about the quality of the gravel routes.

So next time you are booking a holiday give Majorca a miss and go to Girona instead.