Twists and Turns

Saturday, April 19

This is the day we set aside for driving down the coast to Spain (about 30km south). This route is known as the Corniche of the Cote Vermeille. Think Highway 1 in California, but with craggy headlands and steep, terraced hillsides of rocky vineyards and olive groves.

It was a beautiful day in which to experience this spectacular coastline. The sea was two tones of turquoise and blue. It was a very windy day, so there were lots of whitecaps. The vistas seemed endless--and so did the twisty, curvy, narrow highway. There were almost no turnouts on the highway, and the few there were would have been crazy for us to attempt since they were all on the other side of the road and always on curves. Not being able to stop was very disturbing to me. I know I'm supposed to be "in the moment," but it was killing me to not be able to capture the beauty I was seeing. My camera fingers were practically twitching.

We crossed into Spain in the hopes of seeing a wine region Jerry had read about in one of his wine publications--the Emporda region of northern Spain. (Barcelona is less than an hour south.) We certainly saw vineyards, but apparently the primary area of production and tasting facilities is inland about 30-40km. We hated to give up the beautiful sea views and opted to stick with the coastline.

Surprisingly, we found that we felt disoriented in Spain. This was probably for a number of reasons, but was certainly influenced by the fact that neither of us speak more than a few standard Spanish words or phrases and the fact that we had no road map. We drove through Llanca, one of the few towns shown in the wine article, and headed for Cadaques, another mentioned town. But we found ourselves driving 30km through a wild, vertiginous piece of country, taking our twisty, curvy driving experience to a new level, so to speak. Then when we got to within a couple miles of our destination, we found ourselves in a traffic jam with no way out. There were police directing traffic and there was no parking to be had, with miles more of cars behind us wanting in. We never paused, but headed back up the hill and found a shorter route back north to Llanca. It was a spectacular ride the whole way, but perhaps we should stick to our France knitting. We felt almost like we were arriving home when we crossed back into Franca (Spanish spelling).

On our way back north, and now in comfortable France, we stopped in the pretty little town of Banyuls-sur-Mer, for a chance to stretch our legs. We found a very nice waterfront restaurant that had a wine cave and tasting room attached. We hoped they might sell us some water and a snack, lunch having gotten lost in our uncharted wandering, but the restaurant was not in the snack business. They were in that French restaurant dead zone--too late for lunch and hours before dinner will be served. We settled for tasting some local Collioure and Banyuls wines, enjoyed strolling on their quay, and then pointed ourselves "home" to Collioure.

The weather was changing on our northward route. Clouds started to appear. All along, the forecast has been for rain on Easter, and it started to seem more possible. We were thankful that we took this scenic drive on such a pretty day.

It was a challenging drive--Jerry probably earned a sore clutch leg and shifting arm, and I've been known to be a bit of a white-knuckled passenger in such situations. And it was exacerbated by the heavy holiday traffic, the crazy, suicidal motorcyclists, and the legion of cyclists sharing the narrow, twisting road. But this Corniche road was, without a doubt, the most spectacular coastal drive we've ever seen.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad