Portugal Part IV: The Old Passats of Vila Nova del Milfontes

Years ago we owned a Volkswagen Passat wagon. The B5 generation Passat was sold in the U.S. from 1997 to 2006; ours was a 2004. I thought it was a great car - really Audi mechanicals with a VW skin. Our wagon eventually became my son Ted's car, and when he went off to college, it became David's car. David and I to this day retain a fondness for the old Passat. 

The B5 Passats are all now 18 years old, and it's become pretty rare to see them in the U.S.; however, they seem to be everywhere in Portugal! It's a modern country with mostly modern cars, but apparently they love their old Passats. Here are five Passat wagons (all but one of the old Passats I noticed in Portugal were wagons, and all diesels) I saw just during my final walk around Vila Nova Del Milfontes. To give you context, these five cars represent just two hours of old Passat sightings. I spotted two more that day on our way to the airport, so that's seven in one day.

Bonus Golf wagon

Portugal Part III - The Cycling Trip Continues

 Tues 10/22: Santiago do Cacém to Porto Covo

A word about breakfasts: the breakfasts at our hotels were all pretty similar, and we didn't find them too odd for the American palate. There's (surprisingly) none of the odd sea creatures I encountered in at a buffet breakfast in Japan, and none of the salads you'd find in Israel. For the most part the breakfasts included various dry cereals, instant oatmeal, yogurt, an assortment of pastries, and some wan fresh fruit. Every breakfast included a small warm food section with industrial scrambled eggs and various porky breakfast meats, and let me say, there seems to be a nationwide pride in making the worst scrambled eggs possible. I mean, they were uniformly inedible. Interestingly, there were also always trays of cold cuts and bread. I guess either cold cut sandwiches are a Portuguese breakfast food, or the hotels, which cater to active travelers, give their guests an opportunity to grab something to eat later for lunch. Sadly, the cold cuts were never labeled and seemed entirely pork-based, so I never indulged. There were a few innovations I'd like to see at home: fresh-squeezed orange juice, including one place with a Willy Wonka-ish do it yourself juice squeezing machine; hot milk for your coffee; and most places had decaf. But where's the doggone waffle maker like you'd find at any self-respecting American hotel breakfast?

One other item of note: the lobby lounge area of our hotel was equipped with a Roland electric piano, and I took the opportunity to play a few songs one morning while our group slowly shuffled in. I enjoyed having a chance to play, and they were all suitably impressed 😀.

The day's ride was described as an “easy day, with a hilly start”, which was fairly accurate – except the description didn’t mention that our ride included yet another rough unpaved road section. We started by riding paved roads up to the Roman ruins above town. The ruins were pretty small, but they still looked interesting to me; however, when the group found that there was a 3 Euro entrance we decided to move on. 

Roman ruins

We knew we were going back towards the coast, and yet somehow our ride started by taking us up in elevation. I mean, c’mon – how is you have to ride uphill to get to sea level? Where are we, New Orleans? We passed through some typically pleasant countryside before making a turn into – uh, oh – a dirt road. Today’s road was through some more really lovely scenery, but while it was better than the previous day’s totally unrideable sandy trail, it was still borderline to be able to ride it on our bikes, which had front suspension to cushion the ruts but lacked the beefy tires you'd want for this kind of trail. Mike, Terry and I gingerly made our way through. Clare and John walked. We all met up where the pavement picked up again, and then continued on to a recommended stop at a little rural café, where we had our daily Coke Zero break (but of course, no food other than our energy bar snacks). Another ugly Americanism: every day when we stopped for our Coke Zero break there was much hue and cry about the lack of ice - how could these savages serve soda without ice? Well, from everyone except for me - I actually prefer my soda the European way, without ice. On this one occasion the woman behind the counter was actually able to provide ice for our drinks, which made our group very happy. What made me happy was my ability to say something close enough to "um sem gelo" that the woman understand that I didn't want ice. I feel a real sense of accomplishment any time I can make myself understood in a foreign language - even if it's something as simple as three words.

Riding on the dirt ...

... and on the pavement

Our tour definitely steered us towards little local businesses. One of the features our app mentioned in its descritpion of today's café is that there’s an old guy who works in an adjacent shed (apparently not affiliated with the café) who is a beekeeper and honey maker and is notably devoted to the craft. We got to see him working at scraping the beeswax out of some frames, readying them for the following year. The old guy speaks no English, so we kind of smiled and waved at each other. It turns out that Mike used to keep bees (!) and he was able to explain to us what the guy was doing and pointed out the different pieces of equipment.

The old beekeeper

Sitting under the olive trees while we drank our Coke Zeros

The ride after our stop was truly stunning, as we were riding right along the coast. The Alentejo Coast of Portugal faces the Atlantic, and every beach we visited on our trip had big crashing surf. There's also varied topography. While some of the beaches look similar to East Coast U.S. beaches, others have dramatic cliffs and giant rocks extending out into the ocean. Our route took us to an overlook where we had to walk along a narrow path atop a rather sheer cliff to get the best view. Interestingly, there was a little horseshoe shaped beach area carved out of the cliffs, totally private except to those atop the cliffs. This, it turned out, was a nude beach; however, it being late October, the beach was sparsely populated, and those there were largely limited to what seemed to be vacationing elder naturists. Sorry, no pictures.

Scenic coastline

"Nude beach"

Finally, we made our way into Porto Covo, a picturesque fishing town turned beach vacation destination, with whitewashed houses and a quaint-as-heck little town square. We were staying in a small suite hotel. In contrast to the sometimes small rooms at our other lodgings, at this place I had a whole 1 BR vacation flat. I would have loved to have had the kitchenette (Microwave! Stove! Dishes! Utensils!) for the nights I bought dinner at the supermarket in our previous town, but ironically, in Porto Covo we ate dinner out. 

The posse rides into Porto Covo

After a shower and a brief nap I walked down through town to the beachfront (finding a geocache along the way), where I ran into John and Clare. I joined them for a beer in a bar, during which we discussed strategies for the next day – the route again included dirt roads, but Clare’s goal was to find a way to avoid them. John's plan was to go back to their  hotel room after dinner and study some combination of RideWithGPS, Google Earth, and Google Maps to find a paved, though likely less picturesque, alternative to the official route.

The three of us continued to dinner at an Italian restaurant. After three days of energy bars for lunch and supermarket scrounges for dinner, my tagliatelle with mushrooms, onions, spinach, goat cheese, garlic, pesto, and capers was delicious beyond words. Mike and Terry wound up eating at the same place, and after dinner we walked back together and then went our separate ways for the evneing. I walked around the hotel grounds a little bit, checking out the pool and their laughable mini-golf course, then retired to my room for the night.

Scenic coastline at Porto Covo

Whitewashed buildings (the number 42!)

Porto Covo at sunset

OMG, the tagliatelle was good!

More oddball Portuguese plumbing

Weds 10/23: Porto Covo to Vila Nova del Milfontes

Breakfast at the Porto Covo Hotel was a little weak. I mean, they had the same bricklike eggs, weird cold-cuts, and so on as everywhere else. I was able to get my cereal, yogurt and some little pastries. It’s just that they seemed to be cutting corners a little bit. For example, instead of a fancy Nespresso machine there was just a Thermos of coffee – and no decaf. On the flip side, this hotel seemed to host lots of active tourists, for example, some other cyclists, and a pair of young German women and an Australian trio all doing the four day hike of the Fisherman’s Trail. It was fun to chat about everyone's adventures.

Our ride was going to take us to our final cycling destination, the beach town of Vila Nova de Milfontes. Once we get there we’ll have covered most of the wild Alentejo Coast, almost to the more developed and better known Algarve region. While short in mileage (only 22 miles), and described in the app as as a “Short flat day” and a “nice and relaxing day”, it turned out to be as challenging as the other days due to the fact that it was almost entirely on rough dirt roads.

Have I mentioned that Clare really doesn’t like riding unpaved roads? John had failed to find an alternate route, and at this point in the trip, she decided she just wasn't going to even try to ride the unpaved parts anymore; she just walked them. We were all inclined to cut her some slack since she’s soldiering on despite having some family stuff at home. Also, it really didn't separate the group very much, as we only crept along on the dirt trails, and were happy to wait a few minutes every now and then for them to catch up. Plus, to her credit, she’s never complained about the situation – she just walked the dirt segments.

We started off with another dirt path along yet another set of fabulous cliffs. I’ve got to say, the days rides have become predictable – a bumpy back road leading to some incredible coastline which is even prettier than what we previously thought  must the prettiest coastline in existence. Somewhere along the ride there’s a castle. And finally, we ride into a quaint town that’s even quainter than what we previously thought must be the quaintest town in existence.

So yeah, another ride along some cliffs and pounding surf against cliffs, giant rocks, and tranquil beaches. This time we went past a seventeenth century fort used to protect the coast against pirate attacks, and another fort out on an island which has been occupied since 216 BC, starting with a Carthaginian settlement. The area has been a fishing center since Roman times – apparently the Romans made some delicious fish sauces. Here’s one of their recipes: mix fish eggs, fish guts, small fish, and shellfish. Heat well, then let decompose for about 2 months. Yum! 

We rode dirt trails through some wooded areas. I was out ahead and had stopped in some shade to wait for the rest of the group when I noticed what appeared to be something almost the size of a ping pong ball walking itself across the street. On closer examination it turned out to be a dung beetle rolling a ball of, well, dung. They’re pretty big bugs. Weird and fascinating to watch. And icky

Then for a while we were on a busy paved road with no shoulder, with big trucks – the European equivalent of 18 wheelers flying by. Eventually we reached a junction where the app showed two possible routes: the preferred route was to duck back onto dirt roads for more scenic beauty, but you could also continue on pavement to town. John and Clare opted for pavement and traffic, while the rest of us took the dirt road. You know how I mentioned that each beach was prettier than the last? Well, here we were again, down a little side path to yet another breathtaking beach, where we watched surfers and marveled at the large wall built to create a sheltered port area.

The town of Vila Nova del Milfontes, from Faro Beach

Statue by the water in Vila Nova del Milfontes

Scenery on the way to Vila Nova del Milfontes

Eventually my group rolled into Vila Nove de Milfontes and headed for the promontory at Farol Beach, where there’s a weird statue and views down onto several beaches. John and Clare’s route had unsurprisingly been faster, and they met us down at Farol Beach, having already dropped their bikes off at the hotel. The five of us went into town, where we sat at a cafe and each ordered a Coke Zero and a side salad. Once again, no real lunch, but at least we ordered some kinda food! I swear – do these people ever eat? From there we walked over to a market. I wouldn’t call it a supermarket – more of a neighborhood market. The place lacked a prepared foods section and there wasn’t much there for me to eat, save for the famous Portuguese cans of fish, so I left empty-handed. John and Clare bought some snack foods and a fair amount of alcohol. We had gotten into town too early to check into our hotel, but by the time we finished our soda break and food shopping, it was time to check in. The HS Milfontes was the most bare bones of the hotels we’ve stayed in all week, but it’s fine, and the location is great – ocean-front balconies, and an easy walk into town. And the water pressure is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's like being pressure-washed. Which feels great after a bike ride. I went through my usual post-ride ritual of showering (mostly to wash off the heavy, goopy sunscreen I use), napping, and staring at my phone for a while. 

I walked down to the water by myself to watch the sunset, and bumped into my fellow travelers – John and Clare going back to hotel to eat their supermarket dinner, and Mike and Terry going to a restaurant to eat (they invited me to join them but I declined – restaurant was the traditional Portuguese menu). Instead, I ate by myself at a place which surprisingly had chicken on the menu, a seeming rarity here. I had chicken breasts with a mustard sauce, apples. The dish came with fries, and a side salad. An actual side salad! I swore I was going to eat only one or two fries, and usually I have the willpower to avoid food that's bad for me, but I wound up eating them all.

Vila Nova del Milfontes sunset scenes

Chicken dinner!

Special kayaking note: Vila Nova del Milfontes looks like it has some good kayaking, with its large, sheltered cove. There were a few places which offered kayak tours, and I smiled to see the familiar Wilderness Systems logo on a kayak just outside my hotel. More surprisingly, right across from our hotel there was what seemed to be a boathouse (well, giant temporary building) which seemed to be home to the local serious kayakers. One day I saw a guy hosing off a K2 racing kayak and a wing paddle. I wish I had had the opportunity to talk with that guy - and to go paddling!

Racing paddler

Thurs 10/24: South of Vila Nova del Milfontes

Our final day of touring! And another place where we were staying two nights, so no packing! 

As always, we started with breakfast at the hotel. Like our previous hotel, this one seems dominated by active tour groups – in this case, a cycling tour group from Germany. They seemed very fit and even Mike (who is pretty tall himself) noted how tall they all seemed.

Today's ride was again on sandy dirt roads and, as readers might by now anticipate, Clare opted out and therefore so did John. Mike, Terry, and I decided to do the planned ride but as it was an out-and-back route we decided to cut it a little bit short. We’re all already a little bit sore from days of off-road riding and weren’t really looking for 40+ more bumpy miles. The tour company - ever responsive on Whatsapp - gave us a good suggestion of where to turn around.

We started out crossing the bridge over the Mira River, then again ducked onto back dirt roads, taking us through the towns of Nascedios and Almograve, and finally to viewpoints at Porto das Lapas, and into the Costa Altenejana e Vicentina Natural Park to see the stunning scenery at Cape Sardão, where we found more high cliffs, made of 300 million year old schist rock, along with a 100 year old lighthouse. Positioned as it is at a crossroads among various parts of the world, this area sees flora normally native to the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and North Africa. Today was the first day we had significant wind, which was in our face as we rode out, giving us a little bit of a challenge. It was also the first time we saw cloudy weather. During the course of our ride it went from the amazing sunshine we’ve had all week to totally overcast. No rain or anything, just the novelty of clouds and wind.

Scenery south of South of Vila Nova del Milfontes

Celebrating the end of the ride

Look carefully - there's a stork nesting in the rocks

Mike on the trail near Cape Sardao

The app pointed out that this is the only place in the world where one can see storks nesting in ocean rocks – usually they like to next in trees, or like ospreys, atop just about anything – power poles, chimneys, etc. And we did indeed spot a stork nesting in an incredibly improbable-seeming spot.

 On the way back we stopped at a local café in Cavaleiro for our ritual Coke Zero break (a relatively cheap € 1.80), then retraced our steps home. Today’s road was mostly rideable, with little patches of tricky sand. Mike and Terry each took a fall – fortunately neither was seriously injured.

The whole group met up for dinner at Choupana restaurant, where we initially sat outside at the ocean-front deck but quickly realized that with the sun setting and a breeze blowing, we were going to be cold – so we moved inside. As with most traditional Portuguese restaurants, the majority of the menu was grilled sea creatures with some token ham and beef dishes. I tried to order the veggie burger, but they were sold out, so I went with chicken – yes, they actually had that Portuguese rarity, chicken. All of us ordered the chicken so they served us family style, two freshly grilled chickens: boiled potatoes (except for Terry, who opeted for fires), and another meager salad. As always, John splurged and ordered the bread basket, and we got some wine, with which we toasted our successful trip. For a farewell dessert the five of us split a cheesecake (having eaten chicken, I didn’t try it), and a caramel custard (very eggy – meh). After dinner we all walked by to the hotel together. John, Clare and I would be traveling back to Lisbon together, so we knew we’d see each other the next day. Mike and Terry were continuing on for more travel in Portugal, so we said our goodbyes. I went back to my room with a goal to stay up at least until midnight to begin the transition back to East Coast U.S. time.

Fri 10/25: Vila Nova del Milfontes to Lisbon and Home

Not much to say. I took a walk around town in the morning - one final chance to soak in this wonderful country before heading home.

Walking around town

John, Clare and I had arranged transport back to Lisbon. Unlike our tiny Uber at the start of the trip, we had a roomy van with a personable young guy named Alex at the wheel. John was continuing on to London, but Clare and I took the same flight home. By weird coincidence, my friends Helen and Eric were on the same flight! A smooth flight, a quick Metro ride, and another adventure successfully completed!

A final look at Vila Nova de Milfontes

With Helen and Eric on the Dulles people mover after arrival back in DC

One last bit of trivia ...

Portugal Part II - The Cycling Trip Begins

Here's the TLDR version of the cycling part of our trip: Eat breakfast at the hotel. Pack bags and leave them by the front desk. Bike all day, passing through quaint towns and seeing amazing scenery, enjoying warm, sunny weather. Repeat the next day. More detail follows: 

Mike and John, who had previously done two bike trips in Spain together, agreed that of their three trips this one had the most spectacular and most varied scenery, as well as the most flawless weather. On the other hand, they said that on their other trips the cycling paths had been easier, and there was no riding on busy roads as we had to sometimes do on this trip. 

Sat 10/19: Sesimbra to Setúbal

The elevator at our Sesimbra hotel was broken when we arrived, leaving this as the only route to our rooms. Not easy to navigate with luggage ...

... but the view was pretty swell ...

... though my bathroom had some odd faucets which seemed to have been randomly stuck around the walls as a joke ...

... I didn't try turning any of them on.

We started our day by firing up the "Roadbook for Discovery" app which was our guide for the week. It's a perfectly serviceable app, but has some rough edges compared with more widely used, more robust apps like RideWithGPS (which Mike and John had used in Spain). For one thing, there were certain bugs you had to learn to avoid - like if you clicked on a picture in the description of a scenic spot, it would hang the app, and others you just had to learn to live with - like when the map would flip upside down every once in a while. Also, both the verbal directions built into the app and the tour-specific content were in less than perfect English, written perhaps by someone using the infamous "English as She is Spoke" as a reference. For example, if you'd miss a turn the app would give the warning of, "you are off track since 20 meters!". This sort of thing is why I advise my clients that there's more to releasing an app than just publishing code that according to the developer works perfectly.

The group upon departure

Anyway, each day's ride was broken into three segments: a little tour around the origin city, the main ride of the day, and a little tour at the destination. On this first day we started with a little tour around the city of Sesimbra, including riding out the length of a long jetty (a word I for some reason always associate with the Ant and Bee books of my childhood) to get a view of the city. When we had received our trip briefing the previous evening Rafael had warned us that the first day was going to be the hardest, starting with a steep climb up to Sesimbra Castle. Well, a running theme for my year's expeditions seems to be that the first day of the trip is a killer. It turns out Rafael wasn't kidding; castles tend to be built on the high ground for defensive purposes (never fight uphill, me boys) and we climbed over 700 feet in elevation over a two mile ride. According to Strava (the app I use to log my rides), we were riding grades of up to 12%, which is pretty steep (an EU bike route design guide states that "Gradient for cyclists should not generally exceed 6%, although very short sections with up to 10% might be acceptable", and even a site dedicated to hilly cycling defines a gradient of  10%-15% as "[a] painful gradient, especially if maintained for any length of time".  Fortunately, as I mentioned the steep climb was only for a couple of miles, after which we got to explore Sesimbra Castle. The castle site has been occupied since pre-history, and by the 8th Century CE was a well-established Moorish fort. In the year 1165, a few years after he defeated the Islamic colonizers in Lisbon, King Don Alsfonso Henqriques likewise kicked them out of Sesimbra, regaining control for the locals. So the site's got a lot of history!

At Sesimbra Castle

Every castle has a church. Here John and I are checking out the glorious goyishness at Sesimbra

Sesimbra Castle

Well, we figured we were done with the hard part and had a nice day of touring ahead of us. What Rafael hadn't made clear was that the climb to the castle was just the start of our misery. The day's ride was only a total of 26 miles, a distance which is not a challenge for me, but it was straight up all day. We climbed a total of 2,700 feet with grades up to 13%. Terry, who had the good sense to have rented an eBike, easily flew up the hills but the rest of us crawled along at around 4 MPH. People got off and walked when they couldn't take any more. I'm proud to say that the only time I walked was when I noticed my heart rate had gotten way above my target exercise zone and was up around 100% of my supposed maximum heart rate, though even just walking my bike up the steep grade wasn't much of a break. According to Strava, it was the second most elevation I've ever done in a single ride. My first place ride was century (100 miles), so the elevation gain was spread out over four times as many miles and so was much less steep. And, establishing a pattern for the week, we rode with basically no breaks for food, though I did occasionally pull over and grab little snacks out of my backpack.

Panoramic view from the top

It wasn't all pain, though. We passed through beautiful small towns, rumbled down some dirt roads past small farms, and passed multiple viewpoints with vistas down over the sea. The ride culminated in a scenic overlook with an expansive view sweeping from Sintra 30 miles to the north to our destination of Setúbal just to the south. Just to the south?! Did that mean we were done with climbing? Some German tourists we spoke to at the overlook said it was downhill to Setúbal from there, and indeed we enjoyed a steep and exciting downhill ride into town - albeit with a little bit unwelcome climbing at the very end. 

The group at the summit

After cleaning up a little I walked into town with Mike and Terry but didn't join them for dinner, since they were going to a place with the Portuguese menu (sardines, sea creatures ...). Instead I went to the Pingo Doce food market (via a fumbling experience in Lisbon I had learned to work the self-checkout - by this visit I was a pro) where I got a dinner of pre-fab salad, gazpacho, a roll, and some bananas, which I ate out on my room's balcony. A perfect, simple dinner. It turns out John and Clare likewise picked up dinner from a market. I should mention that throughout the trip Clare was having to deal with an eldercare crisis back home. she was a real trooper about staying positive during the day, but they tended to disappear in the evenings to get caught up on emails and phone calls back home.

Right by our hotel there was a statue of a can of sardines. The Portuguese are very proud of their canned fish - particularly sardines

An aside: Americans are such ugly tourists. The start of our ride had us riding on sidewalks, where we passed a lot of pedestrians. In the US, when you pass a pedestrian on a bike trail you shout "On your left!" as a warning before passing. We had no idea what the etiquette is in Portugal: is calling out a warning even a thing that people do in Portugal? If so, what's Portuguese for "On your left!"? To me, the most reasonable thing to have done would have been to shout "Excuse Me!" as we approached, since many Portuguese people speak some English. With her eBike superpowers, it was Terry who was out in front and I was amused to note that she was shouting "Scuzi!" as she passed people. I mean, why not shout at them using a word you know in some other European language, despite the fact that they're not likely to understand it? That way you can make yourself feel like you're worldly by speaking the European lingo. So what that it's Italian, not Portuguese? All Europeans are the same, right? Never mind the fact that Italy is a thousand miles away. Sigh - so American.

Sun 10/20: Setúbal to Santiago do Cacém

When you look in the Roadbook app, our second day's ride was listed as 50 miles. That's fairly long, particularly when we were all worn out from the previous day's climbing extravaganza. It turns out that the 50 mile distance is there as an option for those who really want the miles (or kilometers, as the case may be), but the default was to bike only 18 miles then get picked up by a van which would drive us the rest of the way to Santiago do Cacém. All being a little rubber-legged, we opted for the shorter option.

We are not a group of earlybirds, with a general consensus that we are unwilling to get started before 10 AM (I am the exception). Mike is a late sleeper, but my other three companions are a little bit more of a mystery, since I'd see them all down at breakfast bright and early when it opened at 7 - what were they up to for all those hours in between breakfast and our departure?

Setúbal at sunrise

Anyway, all that is a build-up to say that we got started at 10 and promptly missed the Setúbal to Troia ferry, which meant we had to wait around for an hour for the next ferry. Good thing we weren't trying for fifty miles, as it was nearly noon by the time we started riding.

On the ferry: "Vest of salvation" is a much cooler term than "life jacket"

€5.40 ferry fare for bike and rider

Our ride took us down the Troia peninsula, so we had lots of water/beach scenery - my favorite! There was an area where there were storks nesting everywhere -  - yeah, storks, like the ones which in fables (and cartoons) bring babies. Very cool - they're not really found in North America, and I don't think I've ever seen one before. They're really large birds, with wingspans of up to 10 feet! No wonder they're able to carry babies. 

Storks everywhere!

Our ride took us into rice fields. Apparently, this is a big rice-growing area and rice is an important element of Portuguese cuisine (it pairs well with sardines, cod, ham, and sea creatures). In fact, our planned route took us through the rice fields. It was cool to see rice growing, but we pretty quickly got tired of bumping and sliding along the rutted and slightly muddy double-track road. It turns out that Clare doesn't like biking on unpaved roads. At. All. It's possible she shouldn't have signed up for a tour which clearly states that it includes dirt roads - but that's just my crazy thinking.

Anyway, we bailed on the scenic tour of the rice paddies and turned back to the paved road and somehow made our own way down the coast for 7-8 miles before we met back up with the planned route. Along the way we stopped at Comporta Beach, where we went into the restaurant. I ordered yet another salad which turned out not to be a tossed salad, but another version of a caprese salad. What I ordered was the "Tri-color salad", which was described in the menu (thank you Google Translate!) as arugula with tomato, avocado, and cheese, but it turned out to be a stack of alternating slices of tomato, mozzarella, and avocado (hence the tri-color) accompanied by a 1/4 cup or so of arugula on one side of the plate, and some cherry tomatoes on the other. But the beachfront setting was lovely, and it was rare that we stopped for food anywhere along our day's riding, so I enjoyed my "salad". Needless to say, we demonstrated some ugly American behavior when my companions, who are all more experienced travelers than I, were shocked to find that European restaurants charge for water. 

Comporta Beach - lunch spot

We arrived at our pickup point ahead of the scheduled time and so we had to kill about an hour at the lovely Pego Beach - poor us! The crew that picked us up struggled a little bit figuring out how to fit five people and five bikes into the van, but eventually we got under way and we drove about 40 minutes to our hotel in Santiago do Cacém. There was a supermarket right across the street, and so we all decided to do another supermarket dinner. I availed myself of another pre-fab mixed salad (with soy fake meat bits!), a tasty "pizza roll", a banana, a lukewarm beer, and a Snickers bar. That last item is a real rarity for me, as I rarely buy candy - I can count on the fingers of one hand, with fingers to spare, the number of candy bars I've bought in the last ten years. Sure, I'll nab some chocolate if Valerie buys it. And I'm writing this entry two days after Halloween - don't ask me about eating Halloween candy. But really, buying candy in the store is something I almost never do - but I was feeling sad at my constrained eating. Also, the hotels we were staying in didn't have microwaves in the room (maybe that's an American thing?), so we were constrained to cold food.

Killing time waiting for the van at Pego Beach

 Anyway, by this point I had been traveling for almost a week and was ready to do laundry, and John had noticed that there was a self-service laundromat near the hotel (this was a really conveniently situated hotel!). The laundromat turned out to be very high tech, with centralized touch-screen kiosk control for all the machines. I did my laundry, then it was off to bed.

Laundromat selfie

Mon 10/21: Santiago do Cacém Exploration

One of the things we liked about this itinerary is that you'd get to stay in the same place for two nights once in a while, and it's really nice to have a day without packing, unpacking, check-out, and check-in. Since we were staying in Santiago do Cacém another night, the day's ride was a loop from the hotel. Upon leaving the hotel we almost immediately ran into a roadblock. A literal one, as our planned route took us down a street which was closed for construction. Fortunately, with a little help from one of the construction workers, who was eager to help and spoke a few words of English, plus consulting the map we found a way to bypass that spot by taking another road, then turning onto a footpath, crossing a railroad track, then continuing down a dirt path for a bit until we got back to our planned route on the other side of the construction zone.

 From there we continued through some small towns and pretty countryside, with groves of cork trees. Cork is apparently another big product in this region,and I for one have been a fan of cork trees ever since reading Ferdinand the Bull as a child. After passing through the village of Vila Nova de Santo Andre our path took us to Monte Velo, yet another gorgeous beach, where we also visited the lovely Santo Andre lagoon, home to 218 species of birds, as well as all other sorts of flora and fauna. From there we were expected to ride down what turned out to be a very sandy path. Honestly, part of the path was too sandy to ride, so we walked our bikes. The path was probably a mile long, which doesn't sound very far, but it sure feels pretty far when you're pushing a bicycle through sand! The path took us through some nice dune landscapes, and we finally emerged at Costa de Santo Andre beach, where we stopped at the beach bar for a soda (Terry got the last Coke Zero; I settled for a Pepsi Zero). By now I am aware that this group is generally uninterested in food during the day, so it being lunchtime, I chomped on a protein bar.

Pushing our bikes along the trail

Daily Coke Zero break

From there our route took us back inland, including a steep but short  climb up to the town of Melides, where we were supposed to visit the Monument to Freedom of Speech, which turned out to be covered up due to more road construction. 

Or next stop was the Lagar do Parral olive mill, which has been operated by the same family since its opening in 1906. Mike, Terry and I stopped in, though Clare and John continued on - Clare wanted to get back and catch up on messages/calls. I think Lagar do Parral is a tourist stop only for little bike groups like us operating through local outfitters. It has no tourist infrastructure and it's clearly not a big tourist trap operation. The grand-daughter of the founder showed us around a little bit, including taking us through the olive washing and pressing rooms  humming with machinery. As we stepped around the machines and over pipes, I thought about how this kind of up close and personal tour would never happen in America due to liability concerns. The first, "virgin" press of the olives is done right there, then send the residue off to other plants where they press out what our guide described as the "bad" oil. At the end of the tour the woman guiding us around grabbed some crushed bits of something dry out of a machine. Mike promptly grabbed one and tasted it, thinking that's what we were supposed to do - but it turns out she was showing us how they grind the olive pits to use for fuel. Not for eating. We all had a little chuckle over the misunderstanding, then Mike lost consciousness from eating olive pits, which are poisonous.

Just kidding - in reality, no harm done.

We bought some little items - site-made olive oil and olive oil soap - in their small shop. Their production, BTW, is 80,000 liters per year, most of which is used domestically.

Cork trees - stripped of bark (it'll grow back and be ready for another harvest in 8-10 years!)

Olives heading for the washer

Olive processing

Olive oil presses and separators

After that, the three of us made the (uphill as always) slog back to Santiago do Cacém. As I've mentioned, our ride every day has three parts. Having completed Part II, the day's main trek, Mike and Terry headed back to the hotel, while I continued on solo to do the daily Part III add-on, another couple of miles and a few hundred extra feet of climbing which took me up to the castle grounds (yet another castle) and through the old castle town. It was getting late and so I didn't visit the castle, but I did stop and enjoy the view from a couple of nice overlooks. Santiago do Cacém isn't as picturesque from above as some of the previous towns we've visited, so no pictures.

A friend I met along the way

YAAC: Yet another ancient castle

Dinner was once again supermarket food. They had neither the veggie salad nor the pizza rolls I had bought the previous day, so my dinner was pre-fab gazpacho (a whole liter of almost expired soup marked down to about 2 bucks!), bread and cheese, single-serving boxed Spanish wine, a banana, and I bought some breakfast cereal to snack on. I love breakfast cereal; grabbing handfuls of cereal (sorry, no milk, no bowls) made me much happier than the previous day's candy bar.

 

YASD: Yet another supermarket dinner

Read about the rest of this trip.