It's late July and you know how some days you have good ideas and some days you have brilliant ideas? Well this was a brilliant idea day!!
I have a true friend called Richard, we have known each other since we met at school when we were 13 years old, so as I type this, it is almost EXACTLY 50 years to the day!! He has a van, he has a number of motorbikes and likes to go racing etc and on this day I was helping him load a bike into his van, it is way easier with two doing it so, as I had called in whilst passing I gave him the lift up he needed.
Now, Rich has had for, many years, an old farm house type cottage in France, in fact it's in the pretty deep south of France, in a beautiful part of the world, gorgeous roads, beautiful scenery, nice food, wine etc etc. Oh and lots of sunshine!
Problem for me with France is they don't speak English and my schoolboy French is pathetic, I can order "two beers please" and that's it pretty well.
Anyways, I was driving home having collected some brake pads or something for my bike and I was considering the few jobs I needed to do when that "light bulb" moment happened... would Rich want to take us to the south of France in his van with our two bikes and as he is fluent in French look after us for a couple of weeks? Cheeky, I know but...?!!?
A week or so goes buy and I just put the idea to him, I don't think I had even spoke to the wife at this point and his answer was instant, he didn't pause for breath or thought, it was just, "when we going?"
Due to work commitments/holiday commitments the date was set for early September, Rich came around and with myself and Julie we decided on a plan, things we needed to get and organise, quickly!
Riding in a foreign country means there are lots of legal things to consider, sensible things make the list longer and as we are taking our motorbikes and Julie and I haven't ridden much this last 35 years we needed some better riding gear!
Richard came up with a "raison d'etre" I think it's called? A reason to be... going, a focal point for our holiday and it was a great idea.
He likes history, Julie likes history (she has a history based degree) I like engineering history, you know bridges, tunnels, railways, steam and traction engines etc so he proffered a place to go as a goal, nay, a mission... we were going to visit
Where? I hear you say...
Can-franc Estacion is a huge, old, beautiful station currently being refurbished, that, was once rumoured to be the largest station in Europe, possibly the world! It has some interesting history during WW2 and did I mention it was in SPAIN!!??!!
Yes, to get to this station we had to head south from Richards place in France, cross the Pyrenees in some way and ride on down into Spain and take pictures of us at the station, then we had to ride back all in a day! Ardent seasoned drivers would do that in an afternoon, but we stopped regularly and took our time enjoying a beautiful day out!
As you can see by the picture, left, we made it and had a brilliant day doing it and on the way we ticked some more boxes on the way. Remember the list above, our Raison D'etre??
Well obviously we had found the station and some railway lines, and a little rolling stock, therefore, we had ticked many of our boxes, but what about a tunnel or other feats of engineering?
Oh yes, that day we ticked more... how about, roughly six major ski lifts? A dam, or two, built up in the mountains and the mother of all tunnels for me! The Tunnel du Somport! This tunnel was truly amazing, hewn through the mountains between France and Spain it is a major feat of engineering and is 1632 metres above sea level and is 8.6 kms or 5.3 miles long!!
Our journey that day was 220 miles long, we short cutted using the tunnel as I wanted to see it and we came back via a route that took us into Spain a little and came back over the Pyrenees, the views were breathtaking and the hairpin bends were many!!
Would I do it again? Well yes I would but I think you should all go look at it, but wait until the refurbishment is completed, it really will be worth it then!
I shall write up part two of this blog post soon!