Yippee! You made it. I look forward to following your journal! We are headed back to Portland. Oregon soon. Have a wonderful time!

Hi Jacquie, today we started looking at air flight options to Malaga and were distressed to see that Air Transat does not fly until May, and that most flights dreamed up by Expedia have multiple stops and can take over 30 total hours. So, what airline did you fly, and do you mind saying what the charge was? How did they/you deal with your bike?

We too went after the Canadian vaccination proof yesterday. Now we are wondering - did the Spanish have a scanner app that can read it, did they readily accept it, are you required to prove vaccination to enter a restaurant, do the Spanish have their own proof system that it would be good to get on board with, are they requiring N-95 type masks, or any masks? etc. etc. Let us all know whatever you have encountered on this Covid topic.

I used to have a checklist I printed before every family camping trip, with 4 checkboxes for each personal item; everybody was responsible for their own stuff. I think that time during the heat wave was the one time I didn't.

LOL, I had to laugh when you said the list is yours and to stop reading if not interested. I always wish for such a list when we embark on our tours and I haven't got one!

We guess this at 1200 km or less. Very doable!

And if you didn't already have one, you could buy a two-pack so one key would work on both. I'm not sure, but if hers is one of the new-key style, with a square rather than a pointy end, you can get a new lock that works with the same key.

Lightbulb 💡 moment re: Abus locks!
Kirsten has the Bordo version but I’ve got one of their U-locks and often carry a cable for those ‘long and awkward ‘ situations. I think another Bordo is in the cards. Thanks for the insight.

Yes, we think you are right - we just saw a reference to Camino Portuguse on that "other site". This reference is promising, as it has a lot of these code names mentioned by country:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Cycle_routes#Spain

Hi Steve
Your question intrigued me, since (as a result of an answer to a question I posed in the Forum) we are thinking of a future tour from the Basque country to southern Portugal.
My best guess would be "Camino Portugues" and it seems there is both a coastal and a central route. I'm not sure how well they are marked on the ground, though, as most of the information I found with a quick search was for tour operators' versions.
With luck, you will get responses from cyclists who've actually been to Portugal!

We have spent the last two days just getting slightly warmed up to the mapping for our hoped for circumnavigation of the Iberian Peninsula. So reading your mapping story was super fun.

Last night a question came up that I was thinking of putting to a Cycleblaze forum, but I think there is a cluster of mapping fans right here, so here goes:

Open cycle map, which can be seen at its home at https://www.opencyclemap.org/ or as a map choice in many a cycle routing web site, identifies international, national, and regional cycle routes. In so doing, it slaps on a label, like EV1 for Eurovelo 1 or TGT, for the Canadian "The Great Trail". So in planning how to get south into Portugal from Santiago de Compostella, we were happy to see a route that heads south for some 400 km (before mysteriously ending in the middle of nowhere). This route is tagged "CP".

So now the question: Is there a key that reveals what the cryptic tags stand for, as an aid to finding out more about the routes? I did find some tables on the opencyclemap site that revealed a bit of this by country, but I still have no idea what "CP" means.

Question - which tires did you choose? I am always tech nerdy wondering about these things!

I use all the views (layers). My favourites, though, are Map and OSM Cycle. And the (relatively) new heatmap function is very useful.

I'd heard of cycle.travel and, when I took a look at the website, discovered I even had an account there already! I don't often select cycle routes except near big cities, though, as they are often rail trails which aren't our favourite way to go.

It will be great to have you following along!

Just noticed your new journal, Jacquie. Looks like the perfect way to spend November. Looking forward to following along.