It felt strange arriving at Lisbon airport after our long flight from Australia. No Customs, no Immigration and no forms to fill out. In the new borderless Europe, it appears that had all happened at Frankfurt in Germany where we changed aircraft. After collecting our luggage and our bike boxes, we were soon looking for a taxi big enough to take the still boxed bikes. We achieved the impossible; with a lot of juggling and rubber 'bungy' cords to get everything in a small Mercedes; then we were ripped off by the taxi driver who overcharged us for the short trip to the hotel. After nearly thirty hours of non-stop travelling around the world we were in no condition to argue. Our brains had shut down long ago and we just needed to lie on a real bed.
After a few luxurious hours sleep we assembled the bikes, packed our panniers, then walked and rode the six kilometres into the centre of old Lisbon. Here we were booked into a Pensao (guesthouse) overlooking the paved Praca de Figuera (a Praca is a large square). We took our bikes up the 96 steps to our small room on the fourth floor. From our tiny balcony overlooking the square, the ancient Moorish Castle which dominated the old town, could be seen.
Rain showers came - and the umbrella sellers appeared out of nowhere, thrusting a cheap umbrella at anyone without suitable shelter from the rain. Needless to say we considered our colourful cycling jackets were quite adequate. In taking a ride on the cute narrow gauge electric tram up the steep road towards the castle, a car broke down and all traffic came to a halt. After about fifteen minutes the car was eventually pushed out of the way and things began to move again. No one seemed to get annoyed. Everyone was patient, no frustration, horn tooting or apparent road rage. This set the stage for the attitude of motorists and people generally for the rest of our stay in Portugal.
To avoid the major road and a tollway, we decided our best option was to catch the passenger ferry across the river Tejo, to Montejo. No problem with the bikes except that they cost half as much again as the fares we paid for ourselves. We were soon away from the city traffic trying to find our secondary road which followed a railway line. After stopping several times to ask for directions and having to back track, we eventually found ourselves on the correct road. It turned out the railway line, which was clearly shown on our 2003 edition map, no longer existed. The road was narrower and far busier than we expected and this, together with the navigational difficulties, gave us a stressful start to our riding. Nearly all the roads in Portugal were quite narrow, but we did get used to that as time went by.
Our second days riding started with another ferry crossing to a narrow peninsula where we had the road to ourselves for most of the day. Noticing a sign to some Roman ruins, we turned off to visit them. A security guard stopped us and explained in his limited English that the ruins were closed for renovation. The rain and the long, steep hills arrived as we approached our destination for the day. Two wet and dripping cyclists arrived in town to try and convince the hotel manager that we wouldn't ruin his room with all our wet clothes and luggage.
Next morning, Sunday, we visited another Moorish castle and some really good Roman ruins - free admission on Sunday mornings, an unexpected bonus here. We had a long but easy run into Sagres, the most south-westerly point in Europe. It is a very touristy place and even though it was out of season, we had some difficulty finding reasonably priced accommodation. Many establishments were closed but eventually we found a place at the unbelievably cheap price of 10 Euros. It was a blue room - bright blue walls, ceiling, curtains and bed spreads. It was clean and neat and it was the cheapest place, by far that, we stayed in for the whole trip. After dumping our gear we set off on a short ride to where Prince Henry the Navigator founded his school of navigation in the 15th century. Here he gathered leading mathematicians and astronomers of the time. They developed and refined navigation instruments and methods that set Portugal in the forefront of exploration and discovery for the next 200 years. This day turned out to be the greatest distance covered for the whole tour, 92km.
The south of Portugal, the Algarve, is a tourist Mecca which we decided to avoid as much as possible. So the plan was to head quickly east, then north, towards the Spanish border and the hill top forts.
We stopped for the night in the youth hostel at Portamao. It was time to attend to domestic chores and set off to do our washing in the laundry which turned out to be a couple of concrete tubs at the back of the building. Domestics done, we proceeded to relax and go sightseeing.
As we were about to head into some back country where few tourists venture, we were somewhat apprehensive about finding accommodation in some of the isolated small towns and villages we were going to pass through. "No worries," said the youth hostel guy. "Every small town has a restaurant and there is someone with rooms to rent." We headed off with this comforting thought but found out as time went on that the Portuguese tended to tell us what we wanted to hear; or was that just the way we interpreted what they were trying to say?
It was a short ride to Silves which has some beautiful modern sculptures, a cork museum (Portugal produces 60% of the worlds cork) and of course a Moorish Castle high up on a hill. Disaster . . . .Somehow, we had lost our travel bible, the ‘Lonely Planet’ guide book. We retraced our steps several times, but couldn't find it. Although we still had a Michelin Green Guide, we relied on the Lonely Planet Guide for most details of accommodation, eating places and the highlights of places visited.
The weather was quite warm as we moved on, ending up in the uninspiring town of Messines. After asking at a cafe about accommodation, we headed of up the road and found the sign for a Pensao, but it was obviously closed down. After a rather animated discussion with some nearby women, we were directed out of town to find a hotel. "Complet" (full up) says the man. Eventually we ask woman in a real estate office who spoke some English. She made a phone call and then directed us down the road and around the corner. Hooray and eureka - we found it! But no, the doorbell wasn't answered. Another closed establishment. As we turned away, another was spotted right opposite - and we are in luck. We didn't have to spend the night rough camping after all. A little old lady dressed totally in ‘traditional black’ and seemed to be at least 90 years old, showed us up to a very basic room. There was a huge brown water stain on the ceiling and the bathrooms were shared, but the room looked pretty good after all the hassles of finding it. Next day we found a pleasant restaurant with rooms available less than ten kilometres further along our route – unbelievable!
The fine warm conditions continued as we commenced a long steady climb for eight kilometres to the top of the mountain range before turning north on a more major road parallel with the Spanish border. We stopped at the cafe in Ameixial, feeling we had done enough climbing for the day and the next town was some 13km further. Was there any accommodation available?
We found it easy to order a coffee - caffe - but getting a hot chocolate was a lot more difficult. As Roger was struggling linguistically, a very English accent said "Can I buy you a beer?" Next moment we were surrounded by a whole group of English expats. One beer turned into two and we found out that there was no Pensao in the village. So Ted was told he would put the two Aussie cyclists up at his house and we would all have dinner at the cafe that evening. Somewhere along the way Ray made a bet that he would pay for dinner if Roger could ride his loaded bike up the steep drive to Ted's house. Well, Roger did and Ray paid up for a memorable night. The next morning after saying our "Goodbyes", we had a freezing 11 km downhill ride to start the day – not an uphill as we had wrongly assumed the previous afternoon.
We had settled into a daily routine and working well as a team. After riding for about two and a half hours we would think it was time for a short break and a banana or some kind of energy reviving snack. If we happened to be near a town or village, we would look for a cafe and have coffee and cake. Such was the case as we rode into Reguengos. Roger was following Margo closely, when he had to make a desperate manoeuvre to avoid a sunken drainage grate. He fell heavily. There was no damage to the bike, only a small tear to one of the panniers, but he did make a mess of his left thumb. A quick patch up was followed by some recuperation at the nearby cafe.
We continued on our circuitous ascent to the hilltop fortified village of Monsaraz. This was our favourite place on the trip. The only motor vehicles are those of the residents and early morning delivery vehicles. To preserve the medieval appearance, no external TV antennas are permitted. In the following days as we pedalled north more or less following the Spanish border, up and down, up and down; we passed though a succession of hilltop forts, castles and quaint mountain villages. This is what it’s all about!
Feeling that we were comfortably on schedule, on the 12th day after leaving Lisbon, we had our first rest day. At Evora - and a minor miracle - we were able to purchase a replacement copy for our lost Lonely Planet guidebook. Refreshed, we rode on to the partially ruined hill fort at Juromenha, where we were only about half a kilometre away from the Spanish border and then on to Elvas.
The bikes were getting used to the cobblestones by this stage. We knew we were approaching the Centro (centre – of town/village) when we started vibrating over the cobblestones. The towns and villages are nearly always situated on the top of steep hills. It took us nearly an hour of slow uphill riding to reach Colviha Centro. Margo is convinced that the hill top situations had more to do with making it hard for cyclists than historical strategic reasons. Next morning was seriously uphill, rising to 1700 metres and covering only 12 km for the day. We were among Ski chalets and near the tree line.
Emerging from the mountains, we were soon back into the civilisation of Guarda. This is highest city in Portugal and it’ history dates back to the Romans. We stayed in a room above a florist shop, which turned out to be the worst room we had on the whole trip – better than camping out – well only just.
We had been experiencing several days of cold and wet weather and the return to sunny skies was very welcome. When we rode on secondary roads, we found the motorists to be very courteous and waited patiently for a safe opportunity to pass when we were on winding hilly roads. However, on the highways, it was bedlam. They drove fast and gave us little room. Sometimes we didn't have any choice about riding on the freeways. We would be happily cycling along a quiet country road when it would suddenly turn onto a freeway with a "No Bicycles" sign at the entrance. There were no alternative, so we rode them!
Most of the youth hostels are closed during the day from ten o'clock, reopening at six in the afternoon. We liked to be settled in at our accommodation before then, so we were forced to give them a miss and stayed at Pensaos instead. They were often not much more expensive than staying at a youth hostel and the convenience of having our own room was nice. In Manteigo, we ended up staying in an old stone mansion. In fact many of the places we stayed in during the tour, such as this, had real character.
We found the red wine and cheese to be excellent, consuming a lot of both along with some of the excellent country bread. Margo found the Baccalhau, (dried and salted cod) to be excellent and very tasty. Of course we ate local dishes and found some of the English translations on the menus to be rather amusing. One of the best was "Prick on coals" which we had to try. It turned out to be chicken on a stick and cooked over a bed of coals. Another one we came across was "Dirty Cutlets", however the restaurant was closed so we didn't get an opportunity to sample those.
We took a tour of the pre-historic rock carvings in a valley near Foz Coa. We then headed west, cycling through some rugged and highly scenic wine grape country on route to Pinhao for another rest day. To avoid more steep climbs over the mountains, it was decided to take a train to Porto. Not so easy - despite there being an empty luggage compartment on the train, we had great difficulty in convincing the baggage officer to take Margo's bike. After a lot of bargaining and arguing with the phrase book, dictionary, arm waving, French and any other language we had a few words of; eventually he relented and we got the bike on. Roger, on the other hand, had no problems. His folded Bike Friday travelled as a large piece of luggage in the passenger compartment.
Porto was a major stop for us and we stayed three days there, soaking up the atmosphere of the lovely old town. Of course, we took tours of the Port wine Caves (cellars) and tasted a drop or two. We bought a bottle of Port to carry with us in case we needed some fortifying along the road. It was rather heavy – so we drank it!
From Porto we started heading back south towards Lisbon and arrived in the old university city of Coimbra at graduation time. The town was crowded with celebrating students and proud family and friends. Our Pensao overlooked the square giving us a good view over the festivities. In the evening, an excellent free orchestral concert in one of the beautiful old churches became another great memory.
After lots more hills, we arrived in Fatima, the famous pilgrimage site. We had been seeing pilgrims walking along the roads for the previous couple of weeks, all heading to Fatima to be there for the big religious celebration on 13th May. This is the anniversary of the sighting of the Virgin Mary by three shepherd children in 1917. We knew the huge site would be packed with pilgrims by then.
On leaving Fatima we stopped to view some dinosaur footprints which had been found while quarrying limestone. It was a humbling sensation; standing beside those faint depressions made 175 million years ago. Later we stopped to visit a huge cave system but our enjoyment was marred by the large number of rowdy school children who were there with us. The following day we rode up onto the limestone range and into a National Park. It was a great diversion to ride on the only unsealed road of the trip, passing old stone windmills and stone farm houses.
We crossed the River Tejo, some 50km upstream from Lisbon, to find quiet roads and tailwinds to take us into Montejo. This closed the loop where we had started five weeks earlier. All that remained was to take the ferry across the 20km wide river mouth and back into Lisbon.
The weather was now much warmer than when we had left 5 weeks earlier, and the tourists had arrived. All that remained was for us to clean the bikes and get them packed for our return home.