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
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| 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 ... |
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| ... but the view was pretty swell ... |
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| ... though my bathroom had some odd faucets which seemed to have been randomly stuck around the walls as a joke ... |
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| ... 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.
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| 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!
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| At Sesimbra Castle |
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| Every castle has a church. Here John and I are checking out the glorious goyishness at Sesimbra |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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?
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| Setúbal at sunrise |
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| On the ferry: "Vest of salvation" is a much cooler term than "life jacket" |
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| €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.
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| Storks everywhere! |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Pushing our bikes along the trail |
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| 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.
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| Cork trees - stripped of bark (it'll grow back and be ready for another harvest in 8-10 years!) |
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| Olives heading for the washer |
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| Olive processing |
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| 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.
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| A friend I met along the way |
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| 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.
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| YASD: Yet another supermarket dinner |
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