The Big Trip #7

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Heading north, we found we had fewer roads to choose from, and they weren't as well maintained as the ones in the big tourism areas in the southern Algarve region. Surprisingly long stretches of road were paved with bumpy cobblestones or filled with rough potholes, making me wish I had a suspension mountain bike to absorb some of the jarring. At the end of the day, my shoulders and back were so sore I felt like I had taken a beating.

Fortunately, the scenery helped make up for the rough roads. We rode along pine forests near the coast, through small villages and past windmills. Each night, we rode an extra few kilometers to camp near the ocean. The further north we rode, the fewer people we saw on the beaches and in the small, protected coves near the coastal villages.

The connector between Bob's trailer and the bike broke twice on this leg of the trip. The first time, he was able to do a temporary fix with the existing parts. The second time, the hose was completely ruined, but he was able to rig up a solution with a rusty tent stake and some tie-down straps.

It usually takes a while to navigate through big cities, and Lisbon was not an exception. After arriving in the city by boat, it took us over two hours of riding up and down steep hills in the large city park before we found the campsite. The cables on my bike finally gave out so I had to muscle my way up the hills using only three gears.

We were both ready for a break. I spent a few days at the four-star campground writing in my journal, hanging out by the pool, and meeting other cyclists while Bob went to a variety of hardware stores, collecting parts to make a new connection for his trailer. One day, we took a day trip to Sintra and wandered around the forests and gardens surrounding the castles above the town.

We managed to time our arrival in Lisbon just as a festival was ending. However, we were happy to walk around the city and spend evenings hanging out with the other cyclists we met at the campground, including Lou and Kylie, an Australian couple doing the same kind of bike trip Bob and I are doing. We put the barbeque to good use, drank ruby, tawny and blanco Porto and had a rousing game of Uno one night with the other cyclists at the camp. It felt good to be in the same place for a while.

Week 14: Northern Portugal
Route: Lisbon - Santarem - Obidos - Nazare - Penela - Luso - Bucaco Forest - Porto
453 kilometers

It always takes us a few days longer than we expect to get where we're going. We stayed in Lisbon a few extra days working on the bikes, then took a train about 100 kilometers north of the city to Santarem. That night, we got stuck in town after dark and had to get a hotel, breaking our 25-day camping streak.

We rode through Obidos, a touristy but charming walled town and passed through Nazare, a popular coastal resort. Outside Nazare, we found that the highway we planned on riding north to Porto had been turned into a freeway. We rode for 20 scary kilometers without a shoulder while trucks and cars sped by, passing us way to closely for comfort. It was simply too dangerous to continue, so we got off on a side road. Luckily, the small roads we took were newly paved, and gave us great views of churches covered in patterned tiles and large, colorful garden plots next to most of the rural houses.

The landscape here was much different than in the south. We began to see small vineyards, and when we weren't riding through pine forests, we'd ride through stands of eucalyptus trees that had been planted in place of the native pines.

We spent one night in Luso, a spa town near the Bucaco Forest. Instead of shelling out hundreds of dollars for specialized water treatments, including one where you held onto metal bar and got sprayed with a fire hose, we filled up our water bottles for free at the fountain in the middle of town. The nearby Bucaco Forest, which had been a retreat for monks in the 1800's, was a beautiful forest garden filled with trees, quite walking paths and picnicking families.

We've gotten to be much more comfortable in our tent than in cheap hotels, so we when we arrived at Porto, we chose to camp outside of the city near the beach and ride the bus into town.

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