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Length of Stage 115 km
Altitude to climb 2300 m
Breakfast at the family table: fresh orange juice, home made strawberry jam and pastry. The hostess is also present and tells us all kind of stories, mostly regarding guests having arrived by bike. We will for sure be part of her next anecdotes. Around nine o’clock we leave and don’t have to do much until Ur. It’s going downhill and therefore we can just sit on our bicycles and have a close look at the beautiful surroundings. Shopping stop in Ur = coke, film and crazy glue, so Alois can finally glue together his tire. Then the first pass of the day arrives: Col de Puymorens. The last turns as well as the view are more than spectacular. After a very short descent we are on the Tour de France route, with an awful lot of cars till Pas de Casa. Not a Pass but a huge shopping center at the boarder of Andorra. Having passed the large car park it gets a little more quiet until Puerta Envalira, the roof of our tour. We have a good rest here, sit outside and watch other bikers come and go. We still follow the Tour, and have first a speedy downhill ride until Canillo. Here we leave the big road and bike on a small street over a little Pass. The climb up is not as long as the previous ones but is even more spectacular: the road winds up in a lot of curves in the rock face and the view into the mountains of Andorra is just great. A large picnic area is on top but the coke break has to wait until Ordino, after a beautiful descent. The rest place was well chosen, since the bike ride through the City of Andorra needs a lot of nerves. The traffic is horrible: escape as fast as possible is our main thought! On the main street we reach Seo de Urgel. First we have some difficulty to find a hotel room, but at the end we find a nice place to stay. A stroll through the „closed" City (stores) - today is „Maria Himmelfahrt" an important holiday in Spain!
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