A few months back I spotted an offer via Groupalia to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini on country roads for a mere 99 euros. A discount of 75% of their normal rate. Ok, when you read the small print, it is only 20km, which will be over in no time, but… when else would I get the opportunity to drive such cars? I signed up and mentioned it to fellow petrol head Juan (Mongol Rally 2009 veteran – Twingo mis Dudas). Unfortunately the offer expired before he was able to take advantage of it. With various phone calls and emails…
I was rather impressed with this, so I thought I’d share.
…my wonderful little daughter, Sofia. Born August 12 2011. My abysmal efforts to maintain this blog are only going to get worse from here on in.
If you know me well, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of Gilles Peterson and listen to his radio show every week without fail. Several years ago I learnt of his festival that he puts on in the south of France. It has been on my 100 things to do before I die list ever since. This year, things seemed to line up. We were living close to Barcelona, a three hour drive from Sete in France, we were due some kind of holiday, and this was to be our last holiday as a couple rather than a family (for…
Day 3. On paper the shortest distance, but the biggest climb, pretty much all of it relentlessly in the first 10km with no rest. A real mix. Woodland, moorland, wide continuous downhill, tight technical single track. An amazing ride, definitely glad we did this one last.
Day two. Even hotter, greater altitude gain, but a shorter distance overall. We cycled up and around Catalunya’s most distinctive landmark, Montserrat. It really is quite amazing, but I’ll let the photos show you that… A great ride, tarnished only by an impassibly overgrown section of technical single track which we had to walk back up again once we could get no further.
It was a pleasure to have Christian come to visit. We’d been planning it for a while, and although the initial April trip was cancelled, Christian made it over with his bike ready for a few days riding in Catalunya. Having been out on the bike very little, I was worried about my level of fitness (last time I rode with Christian we crossed the Alps… I was the fittest I think I’ve ever been, and he still left me standing). I was relieved to here that with him studying for his finals he’d done very little exercise too. Over…
I’m currently building a website for a chap called Tom. He’s slightly more well off than most, so when he invited me to go to Logroño in La Rioja region to sample some wine, I didn’t have to think twice, especially given that Tom was going to be flying us there… Arriving at the deserted Logroño airport there was only one ‘taxi’ waiting in the pickup zone. It was white, rather long and had a fridge full of Cava. We went on two bodega tours which I have to say were facsinating. I learnt a lot about the wine making…