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Barcelona
Barcelona, the second race of the season and to many the most prestigious, presents an entirely different set of problems. First of all it is longer, 708 miles on a direct route to London, but secondly and perhaps more importantly the liberation point lies behind the Pyraneas not in front of them. This means that the pigeons must either go over the top of these mountains or around them.
Barcelona, the second race of the season and to many the most prestigious, presents an entirely different set of problems. First of all it is longer, 708 miles on a direct route to London, but secondly and perhaps more importantly the liberation point lies behind the Pyraneas not in front of them. This means that the pigeons must either go over the top of these mountains or around them.
The panorama, to the right, sets out the real territory. This provides a view from the Castell de Montjuic, very close to the liberation point, and when the Yellow line, on the lower map, is pointing slightly left of vertical the view above shows the direction to London.
You can take a tour of Barcelona by clicking on points on the map, which will give you views from that location, and then move the view around by dragging your mouse over the view.
You can take a tour of Barcelona by clicking on points on the map, which will give you views from that location, and then move the view around by dragging your mouse over the view.
Barcelona tour provided by Panoramic Earth. All rights reserved.
Looking at the panoramic view from the liberation site below you can see a red line which marks the direction of London. This line sits neatly to the edge of the Pyraneas which simply get higher to the West. Only to the East lies more optimistic elevations.
You can see, when you look at the route elevations below, that a direct route to London would involve passing over mountains in excess of 8,000 feet, that is almost 3 times higher than anything in the UK. Pigeons may well fly at these altitudes but probably only if they really have to.
Invitingly an alternative does suggest itself, the Rhone Valley. The route path shown via the Rhone Valley goes from Barcelona out round the coast and across to Arles, then up through the valley to Lyon and Dijon before striking across to London. This of course is merely a possible route, involving elevations up to about 1500 feet, but such a deviation would add considerably to the flying distance, rising from 708 to 885 miles.
Well the Barcelona liberation point moved for the 2011 race from the heights of Montjuic Park to the depths of the beach at Platja de Llevant about four miles away. I really feel sorry for the convoyer's who will now feel almost obliged to take a dip in those shimmering waters before getting the pigeons away. While it will make the race a little shorter this will make little difference as they will now have to climb from sea level and not benefit from the slight lift that Montjuic gave them.