Lovely (apart from the dogs) sunny cycle in light winds.
Those stats:
43.8 miles at 12.8mph.
2,706 ft of ascent. Max 29.3 mph.
But first:
Basic but enough; coffee, yoghurt, bread, cheese. Still no eggs.
Off into the the rolling hills, but not before lots of faffing about trying to work out how to get out of this little town.
I blame Garmin’s aping. Sorry mapping.
But when we got out…
We cycled south to Povoa de Sao Miguel, a 2 horse town on my Portuguese town grading system.
A steep slog up to a busy café where we had to have the custard pies with our coffee…
This was a lively place full of locals getting stuck into their pichets of wine. Well it was almost midday.
Lovely quiet tarmac road to Moura, another town on top of a hill with a castle.
Great light lunch; I had local black pork with salad, rice and chips washed down with a glass of vino tinto.
Then we left. But couldn’t find our way out of town yet again. Portuguese signposting is hopeless, as bad as our sense of direction.
The dreaded Garmin guaranteed if we took this almost unrideable dirt track for 200m it would deposit us on a local road which after a few miles would lead to cycling heaven.
But the local road was also a dirt track but worse as in the arse end of nowhere the locals let their ferocious mutts out to try and savage the rare passers by.
We were chased about 3 times and it was scary.
Eventually on tarmac to a little town called Brinches.
Roads really quiet – mainly agricultural traffic, tractors, pickup trucks and so on.
About 4pm arrived at Serpa. Lovely old town with castle, viaduct and town walls. We’re staying in Casa de Serpa, a guesthouse in the old town.
Like many places we’ve been through it seems depopulated. On our way back from supper there were very few lights on in a long street and I doubt they were out partying.
A couple of beers in a square then to a little bar for supper.
The owner recommended the local mushrooms which were excellent, cooked in eggs, olive oil and large bulbs of garlic.
Washed down for a change with a couple of jugs of vino tinto.
The loo was somewhat different…
And so back to my cell like room and sleep…
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