Diamonds rhyme about cycling in Barcelona

Early morning
Claudio freezes the sleeper
The bike is waiting for him
Pain is great

Money is great
Half-meter head
Luggage has been left alone
The adventure begins

The lyrical subject is very much amazed that during his holiday in Barcelona, ​​at the dawn, he faces a negative temperature. Even more astounding is the fact that Claudio from a bike rental company Montefusco Cycling Rentals & Tours arrives at the minute at 8.00 am, in other words according to the contract. This situation is unexpected, because most rentals work in typically Spanish hours. Regret, however, hesitates the idea that renting a bicycle daily costs € 40, and putting it under the hotel and receiving an additional 2 times 20 €. If he took it in a suitcase from his home country, it would be similar.

If it were not for the fact that he is a famous novelist and fejm him ahead, he would be bankrupt. So he picks up the market, sells advertising for a discount. Mediterranean circumstances are not conducive to such agreements. In Spanish colloquial speech, some words become silent. As in our case, the personal pronoun is omitted in the phrase "Take out the garbage" (instead of "You take out the trash"), so the noun is omitted mañana meaning tomorrow. Or something similar - some term in the future simply. This means that when the wife says to her husband, "Take out the garbage," he hears "Take out the garbage tomorrow" (or somehow in the future). Tourists often forget about it and expect that after making an appointment with the Spaniard at 8 am on Saturday, this person will appear at 8 am on Saturday. Or that when you order dinner at a restaurant and the waiter says you have to wait 20 minutes, you will get food in 20 minutes. Such a shaft. True story.

A sleepy city
Tibidabo I am ramping up pam
Sagrada Familia is not ready
The church is ordinary

Driveway long
Góra Kalwaria of Barcelona
The knee of the beard hooks
Stairs, gravel

The first destination is the Tibidabo hill - the highest hill in the area (512m.npm). Erroneous preparation of the track makes that next to the perfectly level and empty asphalt at this time, the cyclist encounters long stairs and an even longer, stiff uphill (in principle) approach. Adventure. He is also grateful for the too-low saddle and the aforementioned geometry of the bicycle, which makes the steering wheel half a meter too high. He suffers inwardly, unable to catch up with the highlanders, let alone other roadways for whom this place is the equivalent of the native Gass. The knee is a memory more durable than a bronze monument shooting (...). He will even heal when the last thoughts of that day are gone. Too early to speak when the pain left.

On the way you pass the most famous monument of Barcelona - Sagrada Familia. This building is particularly close to every IT worker. It symbolizes a project in which the main assumptions are constantly changing, and the principles of financing make it something that is eternally missing. You know a method that allows you to estimate how much someone in korpo is important, by hypothetically passing it by bus and checking the consequences of this act (so-called bus factor). I suspect that it has a foundation right here - the creator was slightly prematurely driven by tram. The effect is obvious: it did not speed up the work. The lyrical subject questions the effort put into the 136-year construction of the building, describing it as an ordinary church. In fact, we know that it is not ordinary. Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia this is Gaudí's work, organic design, individual decorations. We can find here the effects of blasher and boredom surrounding the world. Because the church is beautiful, but how many churches in life can delight? Soon it will turn out that you can not really admire much, but surprise as much as possible. The journey continues.

Great views
Church of the funfair
Multitool needed very much
The orthopedist is crying

Give me
Jesus sees everything
He observes from above
Hells gate

It is not without reason that Tibidabo is so popular. The road that goes there is excellent and the summit is only a dozen kilometers from the city center. The city, from which the trip thanks to the rich system of paths and the sleeping Spaniards, was perfect. We can guess how much the lyrical subject is embittered by the fact that people have such places under the house. The only encouragement is the fact that in the summer probably everything is blocked with people. How did you come to that? At the top there is a church ... and a funfair. There is a roller coaster, a Ferris wheel, a red plane. Everything is for tourists. Bike is the only opportunity to break out of this tourist world and be able to forget about people and crowds for a moment. This is only an introduction to the deep depression that awaits in the further part of the song.

At the top, one of the cyclists saves the hero with a tool thanks to which the saddle protrudes to the right height. Is beautifully. The average speed increases and sometimes exceeds even 20km / h. Man-hurricane, man-lightning ... that would be described by a few, passed people (if it were not for the fact that all other cyclists still go much faster).

The name of the hill in Latin means "I will give you" (and it connects somehow with the story of Jesus, Satan and promises). This of course explains the towering, almost replica of the most popular monument of Rio de Janeiro, which is on the top of the church. It's the riders who are going to him. Jesus looks how you exercise. Jesus spreads his hands.

Come to me a few times and I will give you a form. It is a true meaning, which is properly interpreted only after many hours of loneliness, in the wilderness of the surrounding hills. I'm not writing anymore, I'm afraid of hell.

The perfect congress
Boring cities like that
Montserrat on the horizon
However, no

Coll d'Estenalles
Emptiness hurts a bit
A journey without a destination
The war will be

Behind Tibidabo, the landscape becomes homogeneous. To the horizon, exactly the same. Not very interesting, deserted on a Saturday morning of the village, sometimes some larger road, on which the cyclist can only be found by accident. This is how many kilometers are going. Slowly and dispassionately. Everything passes, but the ideal asphalt never ends. Memories from the Canary Islands are returning. In the end, she appears on the horizon - a mountain with a hut at the top. The first association is Tenerife and the small version of Teide - it's him, it must be the Monserrat monastery. It is huge and, despite approaching, it does not become more accessible at all. It seemed that Montserrat looks completely different, but people are wrong. Wygooglane results also.

This is a story about a journey to the destination. The goal, which seems to be at your fingertips, but is extremely distant all the time. The uphill starts, the debts are very high - the aforementioned building appears more often from the side instead of straight ahead. The ascension lasts for a week and continues in an increasingly suspicious direction. It was not Monsterrat, it was Monestir de Sant Llorenç del Munt. The cyclist does not even approach him - great grief. Google Street View suggests it's a beautiful place (link to GSV).

The summit, there is nothing on the top. The search for a monastery has no effect. No coverage on the phone, no people, no anything - just exit to both sides. Defeat. The highest mountain in the area (nearly 900m.npm) gained without any rewards, even the store. Views obscured by trees, but still they would not be better than Tibidabo. Only the plate with the inscription Coll d'Cost and the cyclist with his belly over the bicycle frame from Decathlon with her selfika shoots. If only zooming out on the Wahoo Element worked as it should. If only you could move the screen. If only you could get to know your position, estimate where it is, count how far to the main goal.

What happens next is difficult to describe. The perfect descent, the views known to everyone. Everyone has a friend in Calpe or in the south of Spain, and everything is similar here. But no, the difference is in the distance. Some strange clouds. Or maybe it's not clouds? Can mountains be so high? Return to geography lesson, science from 15 years ago was not in vain, after all it was Andorra and Pyrenees. Snow-capped peaks do not fit here at all.

And towns, like the same as everywhere, but one detail distinguishes them. If there is a civil war somewhere in Europe, it is here - Mura reminds us. Catalan flags, fluttering passwords beginning with libertad and Democracia and crossed out the heads of politicians. Beautiful, but dangerous. The flags were also in Barcelona, ​​but not so intensely.

Shock, surprise
The Tatras are weird
That is impossible
Jadnak yes

The prize is huge
The summit is so beautiful
Tourists crowd everywhere
Everything is destroyed

The surprise is the most delicate of words that can describe what emerges in the distance. It's like one of the nicest places in Poland - Łapszanka, only green. Instead, the horizon is obscured by a mountain crest. Such tatras, only pointed more and one can not resist the impression that one of the hills is still showing off. He says - do not get me in, turn back. Is it possible that the famous Monsterrat is just them? Those mountains? How close is the road and is the monastery at their foot? It was impossible, it was supposed to be high. The answer becomes more and more clear with every beaten kilometer. Total wasteland, no one. There is a memory from Mortirolo - how it is possible that the uphill has been going on for so long, and the chart of surges is still endless. However, this does not bother you, the mountains of Montserrat reaching over 1200m.npm is one of the most impressive places encountered for a long time. They are beautiful - terrible, but beautiful. Constant driving becomes impossible. There is a photo stop at each turn. It extends the time it takes to get summit indefinitely.

Intersection - it turns out that the side, not very popular road connects to a much larger one. This is the place where tourists go to the Benedictine monastery, located less than a thousand meters away. What the uphill look at 360 ° looks like is perfectly visible this photo in GSV (really, this photo is worth a click, IT IT!), and how much it is detached from the surrounding landscape will be seen here.

What's up - destroying the whole effect is hundreds of meters of parking lots, people, cameras, selfiki, tickets, stop funicularu (queues in a sense), shops, market, buildings, police. It was not supposed to look like that. Impressive height, the views are breathtaking, but school trips, expensive cars and buses evoke an immediate urge to return to loneliness. Through the camera hanging at the neck, even the commemorative cheese from a stand from Krupówki will not fit into the pocket. It is a pity, ending food supplies will let you know. The last store was seen many kilometers ago. It's good that although a tap with water along the way can be found. The vision of self-fulfillment by winning another summit, as one of the few, falls as usual in ruins, is lost in the crowd. Tourists kill everything.

Suffering suffering
The bomb does not choose
Gone somewhere in the ditch
It's time to die

The fight has been surrendered
Lost so big
The red measures me
Designer ciul

It is late winter, a man unused to long hours of solitary efforts. A man unaccustomed to riding completely lonely, because he forgets then, about stops in cells as primitive as supplementing calories. It's almost 150 kilometers defeated on 3 bars, there are still 2. The penultimate driveway on the route goes on forever. This is against all that they taught in college, but it is a longer infinite than Montserrat. Any cyclist will understand that. There are no views, no serpents, there is nothing, even large slopes. This tends to be unbelievable, fortunately there is not even a shop that would beat the rhythm. The congress suffers similarly, especially since it is interrupted by Świętokrzyskie driveways. Resignation from the last driveway, shortcut straight to the city - the biggest mistake of the day.

A drive from Molins de Ray, where a serious civilization begins and a reflection on a driveway that would allow her to avoid her mountains and land on Tibidabo is a chore. 25 kilometers takes about 2 hours. Continuous traffic of cars, traffic jams, traffic lights set up so that every 200 meters a minimum of half a minute is waiting. A tenth hour of driving for a change in coolness and warmth, this is not the moment for such an experience. Barcelona becomes a hated city. A bit unlucky, because if the route led differently or if it were not dark (ie Mediterranean rush hour), maybe it would be completely different. It is not. The plan of the evening sightseeing of the city and the reconstruction of thousands of entries about the "top 10 in Barcelona" falls in ruins. Only anger and discouragement remain. Then it will only get worse.

Brylote drunk
Hera, coca, hash
Save me, sir
Krakow in July

The format of the questionable quality of the poem changes. The author does not want to continue this any more. The lyrical subject forced to change the hotel from expensive, paid for by Decathlonon the cheapest, hit in the promotion on the booking, loses all enthusiasm. The journey by subway and then a walk among the crowd of people, of which every second is a drunken Briton, resembles Krakow on the evening of August. The city is nice, original buildings and many of them would be an attraction in the US. Piston, hustle, noise and suspicious type at every intersection, proposing hash, ice, coca it destroys the climate completely. There is no sightseeing. Everything is the same - McDonalds, local kebab, visit to grocery and bed. Beds, in which you can hear the shouts of tourists and an arguing English pair - hoarse voices and FOCK! twice on a sentence. Maybe it will be better in the morning.

Piss evaporate
The morning is beautiful
Rubbish glow of the sun
Barcelona ass

It's hard to say if it's better in the morning. People disappear, on Sunday morning the streets are empty. Here and there are only the extra-party, lost souls. Probably many of them do not even know where it came from in this city. Only the smell of urine on the streets and the laboriously moving order gathering kilograms of rubbish remains after the people. If you are visiting the city, it is at this time of the year - however, there is no strength left. Maybe another time.

Barcelona reminds you why cycling is beautiful and how great it is to escape the city.

As a farewell, as if, at the airport, there is still the loss of the most expensive and the best gusset (8, to the pedals). Nice gentleman seguritad it rummages all the luggage in its search. He mentions that he is too big and there is no discussion. He was not big in previous flights. He's right, now in a fit of anger, you could kill somebody with him. Especially in the check-in hall where McDonald's does not have ice cream or desserts!

The route can be traced here, but as you have probably noticed, it is not optimal at all: https://www.strava.com/activities/1424125418