The Road to Caen

We discovered the trike would not be available any time soon so we departed our friends' home in Finestart about 12:30 pm Fri afternoon. We have ample time to wind our way to Caen, France where we will spend a couple extra days and sight see along the Normandy Beaches, the site of the D-Day invasion of WW11.
Leaving Finestrat we followed familiar roads to Alcoi at which point we jumped on the A-7 and headed for Sagunt where we then switched to the A-23 and made for Zaragoza. Just north of that we stopped for the night at the Norte Hotel, a very nice modern hotel with a full bar and restaurant. The staff spoke very little English but the dinner menu was printed in English as well as Spanish so we were able to make reasonable decisions. I ordered a Cod Fillets dinner which was melt in your mouth WONDERFUL with a fabulous sauce.
Sat we got a reasonable start, about 9:30 and made our way to Huesca, Spain where we made the first selection of a backroad, A132. The first 20km were pretty straight running through farm land and then the fun began. The map did not do justice to the twists and bends and the canyons we would run through for the next few hours. At the N240 we jogged left and continued north on A137 to Isaba and then left and over the border to France crossing the Pico d'Orhi in the Pryenees Mountain range. We then backtracked a bit hoping to get near the coast and a view of the Atlantic Ocean. We continued on nice scenic roads working toward Bayonne, however the weatherman had other ideas and started forcing us more inland and we finished the day in Peyrehoarde, France.
Sun. was the start of the ugly weather and since then we have worked our way north through light rains, then heavier rains, a couple breaks and then constant rain through Limoges and Chartres, until we landed in Caen Tue afternoon about 3pm. The next 2 hours was spent trying to figure out our way to the hotel, as none of the roads are marked with the route numbers visible on the map. We made so many turn arounds you would think would would have the city figured out, but alas that is far from true. Thank goodness we have 2 days to discover how to find the ferry to the UK Fri.
Below are some of the sights from Fri. and Sat.'s riding including fall colors, canyon and incredible rock formations as well as the picnic spot where we stopped and had a nice break, just before crossing the tops of the Pyrenees into France.