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. 😉

Cycling day 13 Sines - Vila Nova de Milfontes

Very pleasant ride today…minimal climbing, tail winds and limited miles.  All beneficial attributes especially since I have a broken spoke.  We made it to our destination without incident, had a lovely lunch(dinner) and enjoyed the small town and beautiful beach atmosphere.  Hopefully tomorrow (Monday) we can get my rear wheel fixed. (no real bike shops in this small town.)

More of these stone pine or umbrella pine trees. This tree is becoming more important in Portugal due to the high value of its edible kernel; the “pine nut”.  Portugal is the second highest producer of this crop after Spain.

If you look close, you can see many people enjoying their secluded beach location away from the wind. 

11:11 photo of the day.  Gorgeous blue skies and wonderful tail wind!

 

A relaxed white sangria in town. 

The view from the front of our hotel !   🏝 

Cycling day 12 Setúbal - Sines

A visit to the Sines marketplace… huge building with lots of vendors putting out their produce, flowers, breads and pastries, cheeses, meat/sausages and lots of fish.  It had great energy. 

 

 

We took a morning ferry from Sines to the Tróia peninsula.

Most of our ride today was in rural land. We rarely saw water, but lots of other interesting things. 

Plentiful  gardens that are well attended to. 

Check out the stork nests.  Very impressive!

11:11 photo today… from Tim’s phone. 

More cork  that had been harvested from miles of the cork oak (Quercus suber) that we passed in route.

On the ferry and on the road after we kept meeting up with 2 German cyclist that are camping along their journey. We were all gathered together when the president of the Portuguese cycling federation wanted to check with us how our tour was going. He gifted us a nice map, bicycle keychain and this photo. 😃

Tim finally got the pizza he has been desiring.. and it was delicious!!! It even had 2 eggs on top. 😋

Our hotel had a bike washing station!  

We also washed clothes at a nearby laundromat and enjoyed a gin and tonic made with locally distilled gin while waiting for the wash cycle. 

We weren’t that hungry after the pizza at 2:00, but did enjoy the fresh sea bass that Alex the waiter presented. 

They grilled it and served it with potatoes, fresh veggies and a salad. Again… 😋 

Cycling day 11 - Lisboa - Setúbal

It was very enjoyable ride today (minus a couple small challenges… including the one at 11:11). We knew exactly how to navigate out of Lisbon this morning, which was a blessing because we just happened to get to the ferry boat station, purchased tickets and board the ferry with only a couple minutes to spare.  Once on our bike again, we cycled mostly through cities, industrial areas some neighborhoods, and a bit of hilly country roads. 

11:11 we were trying to figure out where we were supposed to be and best way to exit the location we got ourselves into. 

We stopped for a break and ordered ice tea and nachos.  We got spicy tortilla chips, spicy mayonnaise and some kind of firm white bean in a marinade. Interesting😊. 

This was interesting to me… the bark was removed from the bottom of each of these trees. Maybe harvesting cork? 

Planting grapes… looks like California wine country. 

Really festive cobblestone alleyways had this flower/bee theme throughout. We saw at least 8 of these decorative archways. 

Some funny art… 

Tim hitching a ride with a large legged lady cyclist. 

Monster cat 🐈‍⬛ 😄

We are very close to an important trade dock.