Final cycling day 17 - Sagres - Lagos

Our 21st wedding anniversary today and the final day of cycling in Portugal. It was a special day indeed. 

Caught the morning sunrise while having an amazing and very plentiful breakfast. 

Our ride started by backtracking about 5 miles, but fortunately we only had a consistent breeze in our face and not the major headwind that was there yesterday. 

This pottery studio wasn’t open yet, but it showed its products well. 

Arriving in Lagos… It’s a much bigger city than we expected. It will be fun to explore. 

11:11 the waterway from the marina to the Ocean.

Our first opportunity to have paella was today! We enjoyed it with white sangria. 

This tag “cute” with a smiley face has been seen on bus stops, fences, recycle bins, abandoned buildings, and anywhere else the tagger deeded appropriate.  We’ve been seeing this tag at least 10 times a day for the last 5 days! 

 

We’ve seen very few live music opportunities, but the guy was fun and he even dedicated this song to our anniversary!

Our wonderful hotel room in Lagos, overlooking the beautiful pool and the marina, had a surprise waiting… bottle of tawny port and chocolate. Tim set it up in advance, but the surprise for him was that the hotel provided it complementary!  

Dinner at a local fish restaurant, nothing fancy…. but good atmosphere and great food. 

Cycling day 16 Carrapateira - Sagres

What a wonderful day. We had a joyful ride with tailwind and fun stop for coffee, a great coastal city to explore and a fabulous hotel. 

The huge wind turbines were turning and we were sailing! 

Our cappuccinos were deliciously prepared and filled to the brim. 

Adjacent to the cafe was the local fish market 🐟

11:11 photo today leaving Vila do Bisho where we visited the cafe/market. 

The blades of the nearby wind power generators made sound a jet-like sound. 

Saw these fishermen from the very high cliffs pull in a catch! 

This fort, built in the 1500’s, is on the high cliffs peninsula of Sarges. 

This lighthouse is on the fort peninsula. 

Upon recommendation we waited in this line for dinner. The hour long wait in the extreme wind (20+mph) made our fresh fish even more delicious. 

This is the view from our luxury hotel room. 😃

Cycling day 15 Aljezur - Carrapateira

We are down to our final 3 days…. and the longer mileage days s are behind us.

These terraces are really very large, but maybe  hard to see in the photo. 

This is a common site … this almost dead looking plant covered with snails.  There are a lot of coastal snails. 

Look closely and you can see 3 horses and a bunch of people on the beach. 

11:11 photo today. Alarm sounded as we were taking a break on a nice bench overlooking the ocean cliffs. 

The ride to the cliff lookout was not smooth, but it was worthwhile. 
 

We checked into our hotel in a valley outside the small town. They have a beautiful pool, tennis courts, a non heated hot tub and a non functioning sauna and a ping pong table. With temps in the low 70’s and high wind, we decided against the tennis, swimming and ping pong.

With our luggage packs removed we cycled to explore the small town and the ocean cliff on our way to a popular restaurant overlooking the Atlantic. 

We ordered and shared the two dinner plates… cod and chips  and sea bass with lovely veggies and capers. We both enjoyed the sea bass most, but Tim was particularly fond of the chips and I particularly liked the caper and veggies. 

Cycling Day 14 Vila Nova de Milfontes - Aljezur

It seemed a cooler start today, but within an hour we shedded some layers. 

A surprising field of cactus crops. 

We changed our route today to get to the suggested (only) bike shop in this region. It took about half hour for Armindo to replace my broken spike. 

11:11 photo… The eucalyptus trees grown in Portugal are not a native species, but they are now one of the  three main tree species. The pine make up 28%, eucalyptus 23% and cork oak makes up about 23%. The pines are grown for pine nuts, cork oak for cork and the main purpose for eucalyptus is pulp for paper products! 

A wonderful lunch.. I had dogfish stew with sweet potatoes and Tim had pork cheeks with rice and fries.  We also enjoyed the white sangria. 

Exploring the village of Aljezur and the 11th century castle remains located in this village. 

We stopped by the local market and purchased some cheap tawny port and dark chocolate.  It tasted like cheap port, but we enjoyed it anyway. 😉