Fanfare…drum roll … ta-da !! Al’s Spain 2018 Vuelta is announced.
Without a ride last year due to circumstances and stuff (!) I have been itching to get one planned for 2018 before the year gets booked up by other stuff (!) . And it had to be different in some way. Having already headed north from the south coast, firstly via Seville and west of Madrid then via Cuenca and east of Madrid, I had to come up with something new, and there’s plenty of Spain still to go at.
This ride will be shorter than the previous ones, giving me time to take in my surroundings and possibly explore more widely off the route. I will begin in Alicante and head for home, about 550 miles as far as I can see, and I start my ride slightly later in the year than previously, cycling in June rather than May.
I had hoped to create a theme around my journey, essentially featuring locations mentioned by Orwell, Lee and Hemingway. A literary route. This hasn’t been entirely possible though I am going to be in the area. There’ll be a little of following the route of El Cid too.
Starting in Alicante and heading to Valencia. From there to Teruel, where Laurie Lee spent some time briefly, and then to Zaragoza. Zaragoza to Logroño, Vitoria-Gasteiz and then to spend a couple of days in Bilbao wandering around the Guggenheim. Then to Santander and the ferry.
So, the training has begun in earnest and I’m going to need some serious brush up on my Spanish. Some knuckling down to be done. More planning and research, onwards…
singlemaltmonkey 