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Watch video here https://youtu.be/u12ksuiO_78?si=vXzkjwiPBVDF3Ag2
We had planned a 132 km route from Chaves to Braga that is supposed to be in the too 5 rides here in Portugal. Unfortunately it started raining about an hour into the 4 1/2 hour ride…..It was a very curvy road and there should have been great views of the lakes we passed and the views from the mountain side into the valleys. We had a few detours down some back roads to the lake at the bottom of the valley. We took a little break at the bridge and now there is just 108 km or 2.5 hours to get to Porto! |
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In Braga we had the most incredible gps route to get to the N12 and avoid the toll roads it felt like we were driving around in circles for at least 15 minutes. Even more amazing we hit all the crazy loops and turns and we didn’t loose anyone. We arrived at out rental apartment and were met by our lovely hosts. We must be tired as they came out to meet us and were very excited we made it and it took us all a few minutes o understand they were speaking to us in French!
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We started our day out well with a nice breakfast in our apartment prepared by the Swede. It was an easy and inexpensive Uber ride into the city Center. We got dropped off at the Sao Bento train station with its iconic lobby and tracks.
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We walked uphill to the city hall for the PORTO sign photo.
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Some highlights of the city
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We decided we needed to return to the Douro valley now that the weather is sunny and the group is all back together. We headed out of our digs near Porto and spent the day curving our way on the small road and mostly along the river.
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Our lunch stop was at a churrasqueira on the side of the road that turned out to be packed and we had an amazing pork and chicken meal served by lovely people.
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Douro valley
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Orvar visited the Douro valley museum and got the scoop. We can take the local train about 35 min up river to Pinhão and many of the quintas can be reached on foot.
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We have another fantastic sunny day on our hands and 285 km of mostly curvy roads. Much of the day will be trying to keep to the Portuguese National route 2. We interspersed this with a few stretches of 20 or so km on the highway to make some miles. We stopped for lunch for another amazing menu of the day for 8 Euros. This filled us up and we stopped in Vila de Rei at 1730 to sort out our beds for the night. Trevor found another great 3 bedroom apartment just off the N2 and this 15 km might have been the most fun of the day. We arrived just as the sun was setting.
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Well enjoy the trips and thanks for continuing to post |
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We just have a short 200 km planned today, but with a stop at the castle at Estremoz and a visit to a cork factory on our way to Evora. It is another beautiful day as we headed south and we had to strip off a layer by 11 when it was 26 degrees. We continued on the National road 2 south which at times is not much more than one lane. There are long stretches today where the road is straight and it was pretty windy.
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We stopped mid day in the town of Estremoz, but first a little crazy riding thru the hill top castle.
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Now it was just another 45 km south to another hill top walled city Evora. Our apartment was about 2 km from the Roman ruins and we had to stop in the main square on the way for refreshments. Rain was predicted and it came just after dark so we were glad they have Uber here!
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Our aim is to get to the Algarve today since Orvar has a flight from Faro back to Sweden tomorrow evening. We set out on a coolish but sunny day for 280 km. We spend a good part of the day on the N2 and most of the day on small roads headed south. The first 220 km were pretty straight for the most part, but scenic with agricultural and pasture land.
The last 50 km was an amazing road over the mountains which dropped us just 20 km from the sea shore at Quarteira. We are being hosted here by one of Orvar’s oldest friends who we first met in Sweden in 21015. |
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We have planned to meet up today with our friend Trevor Angel who lives here in Portugal. We first met him in Guatemala in 2012. He has a mountain ride planned for us with a traditional Portuguese lunch. We headed out from Quarteira at 930 and met Trevor 15 min away in Loulé.
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Trevor knows all the small roads and fun spots to stop. We road up to a fire lookout station with a 360 degree view.
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Our lunch spot was a place you’d have to be in the know to find. You sit down and food just keeps arriving. We had salad and a charcuterie plate followed by fresh cheese and honey. The succession of meat plates were grilled sausage , grilled chicken, ribs, rabbit, and finally lamb. I can’t believe we had room for the dessert! A group of about 30 bikes showed up and they got snacks delivered on arrival.
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The curves continued all day and we had scenic stops in mountain top villages and the town of Monquiche.
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Here Trevor headed back east and we continued west on can you believe it an even more cured mountain road . We finally reached Vila Nova de Milfontes just as the sun was setting.
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We woke to another stellar day with only just over 200 km to go. We made a stop at the view point in the town and then made for the Galp for gas and breakfast! Not much for scenery on the ride today.
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We had an apartment here for 3 nights so we can explore the city. And unlike us we booked a bus tour to Sintra.
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Lisbon
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Sintra
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It was a rainy morning so we decided to wait it out and took a ride on the famous 28 tram around the castle hill.
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The traffic was not too bad initially but after 45 min we bailed and hit the toll road for 35 km. This was only 2 Euros. Most of the day was headed north and then west to hit the coast. We wanted to stop at the famous point at Nazaré. There were no 20 meter waves forecast unfortunately, but it was cool to see it anyway.
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From here we headed north east to the lovely city of Coimbra. This 241 km took all day. We had planned to spend just one night here, but the forecast is for rain tomorrow. There is a particularly curvy road planned on our route south east and so we stayed another night as the sun will come back in full force. This gave us some tine to explore this nice city. One thing there is a lot of is steep roads and staircases. One famous stair is near us and on the way up to the botanical garden.
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Good to see you two back on the road
Gino & Fiona |
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We are so glad we waited out the rain it a beautiful sunny cloudless day. Our day today is half curvy mountain roads and half riding thru medieval castles. We are generally headed south east and toward Seville. We were optimistic on our time line and after Marvao we opted to try for a hotel in Portalegre but on a Saturday night they were all full and we finally arrived to our agroturismo 35 min south just after dark.
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We made our way on the small roads to Castelo de Vide. This town is perched on the hill with a Medevial castle at one end and a lovely white washed town at the other. We managed to follow the signage up the narrow cobble streets to the centre of the castle. This can be a bit hairy at times as the road is narrow and the turns can be quite sharp with little warning. Riding at slow speed on cobbles up and down these narrow passages is quite something. There is a nice chapel to visit and you can climb on the battlements.
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Coimbra to Esperança VIDEOS
Part 1 https://youtu.be/Ih-VWBFW1hc?si=qIXGnGd7PH0Kn5ap Part 2 https://youtu.be/DV5tFzWpU2U?si=Riw2SlMx_zjwGVtz Part 3 https://youtu.be/1a8Bmotu_u8?si=MyCSeL2Jrbwqqb0U |
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We have another blue bird day on our hands for a 416 km trip south east to Sevilla España. We had a few more castles to visit today, but if you stopped at all the hill top towns with castles the trip would take days.
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We did visit the castle towns of Elvas and Monsaraz. Riding up to Elvas you can see the massive aqueduct. We rode up thru the castle town to the gate of the keep.
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Monsaraz Castle is perched on the cliff at the end of the town. Here again we rode up to the keep.
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We lost an hour of time by crossing the border to Spain from Portugal. Our apartment is on a pedestrian street, but you can drive up to at least unload the luggage and the underground parking is just 100 m away. With the time change we didn’t arrive until 5 and so we didn’t do much other than wander a bit and stop for drinks and tapas.
Watch video here : https://youtu.be/WpOxutqcfjA?si=c71vQuTmsjRj8B2z |
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We booked another bicycle tour here in Sevilla, which is a great way to see a lot of the main sights and orient a first time visitor to the historic center. One important detail we learned was how long there has been human inhabitants here and how pivotal Sevilla was in history. The boat is a replica of the only one of the 5 ships of Magellan to circumnavigate the globe and return to Sevilla. The gold tower is 700 years old. We visited the first school of Navigation and the Plaza Major.
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We had a night out in the city and met up with our friend Jose who we first met in Morocco in 2015. He was also the one who by some miracle got us into the center of the Farias and actually up to the gate for a photo and into the celebration.
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With a late start and some curvy roads we took until almost 6 pm to get the 260 km on our planned route south to Cadiz. This includes one of the most famous motorbike roads in the region thru the Grazelema National Park.
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We passed by the Zahara de la Sierra castle as we will return this way next week from the south. It is very picturesque hanging on the cliff. After the crossing of the mountain pass we stopped to see the castle and basilica at Arcos de la Frontera . Cannot get these photos to load properly very frustrating to use this blog.
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Sevilla to Cádiz part 1
https://youtu.be/OnCYTXTpcgs?si=MZWLHgH4-jxwB8qZ Sevilla to Cádiz part 2 https://youtu.be/sePq9Z4PjbM?si=T518ElVaEYHTwVIl |
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Cádiz is a fort city on the seaside. Too many cruise ships here for sure!
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our next destination is only 125 km away if you go directly, but on the small roads it was closer to 200. We made a stop in El Palmer where Trevor’s bike crossed 100,000 km!
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It was pretty windy all day, but the last 50 km along the sea shore it was very windy and gusty. We made a brief stop to see the beach at Bologna and we may come back here to see the Roman ruins. It’s only about 20 km from Tarifa.
Cádiz to Tarifa video here: https://youtu.be/nCItcUwCGU8?si=c5OE7Ub2Mw2PJ63p |
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We have seen lots of kitesurfing, winging, and windsurfing. Arriving to the city we got settle in our apartment for the next three days. The forecast is not too optimistic for kiting tomorrow but we will see. There was some pro action on the main beach in town. We also did a bit of a walk thru the old town.
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Today there is just a breeze and this made our visit to the Isla Tarifa much more pleasant. You have to go into the fort guided, but this is the only way to visit the southern most point of continental Europe. We also had a clear view of Africa which is just 14.5 km away across the straight of Gibraltar.
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We finally headed back 22 km to Bologna to visit the Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia.
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It’s only an hour east and 73 km from Tarifa to Estepona, but we managed to again make a day of it by going the long way. This means riding west and we initially took a small road north, but after 40 km it was blocked with a gate with only access to residents. Our destination is 26 km up this gravel road, but it’s 100 km to go around. From here we started on the small roads. This first half was very curvy, but the road surface was pretty poor. We stopped for lunch south of Ubique at a restaurant with at least 40 bikes out front.
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The road after lunch was even more curvy, but smooth. The road down the mountain from Jubrique was like a corkscrew. We have rented a small house in the historic Center in one of our favourite small towns in Spain.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/Fumx6FMrW6o?si=oOZmwJJb56Of6Pcp |
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Today we will ride back up the mountain on a mostly different route and our destination is Ronda with its famous bridge. We got a tip from a long time resident while we had coffee in Glenalguacil who told us how to find the back way on the old Roman road to see the bridge from below. After lunch here we took the shorter way down in the main road that is still very curvy. There are so many bikes on these roads on weekend they have helicopters and drones for radar.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ZmWfneEMxA0?si=v_Xjvx9SGKz1_yc- |
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Today there has been an announcement of a severe weather warning. After the terrible flooding and almost 200 deaths in Valencia last month the authorities are being very cautious. All the digital road signs read extreme rain warning Wednesday. Because of this we will leave Estepona early and ride east and north to Jaén, which is out of the main area of risk. This is only 300 km and mostly on secondary roads. For the last 150 km there were olive trees as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/eoJsbeJNbA8?si=QVHGifJ64qjkoEai |
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The rain has stopped and it has warmed up to 16 degrees. Our plan today is to make it to sleep in the UNESCO city of Úbeda. It is only 57 km directly, but of course we managed to make it into a loop of 160 km and got us to our 3 pm check in at a boutique hotel for 65 Canadian a night in a 14 th century building. The entire day was riding past olive trees as this region is known as the sea of olives. The town of Úbeda had a lot of very old buildings and of course a lot of churches. There is also a 14 th century synagogue here with a ritual bathing chamber. The one thing about nice towns off the beaten track is that everything is closed in the afternoon and you cannot get dinner until after 8 pm.
Watch Video Here: https://youtu.be/iqF31ZpIftc?si=f7ojVp7Yadl365oo |
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Today we are also not going very far on the direct route it’s only 143 km to Granada, but we made it into just over 200.
We woke up to a very windy day and this was a bit unpleasant on the open stretches of road, but much better in the mountains. After we crossed several mountain passes we made it to the highway for just 15 km and headed to a restaurant built in caves just outside the city of Guadix. It is known for the meat and the grilled mushrooms and we had another massive Spanish lunch … no need for dinner again. The goat cheese is aged in a cave for 3 months. Watch the video here : https://youtu.be/JBuYwYeL3N0?si=4pZ1V2K3cbCMNcWb |
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Our accommodation in Granada is in a great location and up on the hill above the city. It’s a 23 min walk down to the cathedral and a 25 min walk across the hill to the Alhambra.
We are meeting our friends Modesto, Kata, and their daughter Emma today in the city. We first met them in 2015 and Modesto has done so many things to help us out over the years and made our lives so much easier. We did some sightseeing and then they took us to a very authentic restaurant for lunch and to try the local Vermouth! After lunch we walked up to the Mirador de San Cristóbal which has an amazing view of the Alhambra and the snow covered Sierra Nevada mountains. |
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The day has finally come to leave Trevor and head home. We are traveling southeast to the village where Modesto and Kata live before heading to Madrid and home. Modesto knows all the roads in this region and recommended one of his favourite rides for us. This is a top 20 scenic ride in Spain according to Garmin. They were not wrong. The road surface is perfect and even on a Sunday other than bikes there was little traffic.
Watch the video part 1 here : https://youtu.be/0opRQefaVkA?si=FHVTOJXsA2IO_HmG Watch the video part 2 here : https://youtu.be/TCNJ48fV4iU?si=RUoARSaUOor7WM9r |
That is all for now see you in April… for it’s all GREEK to me!
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