Nice coverage of Rocio!

We saw a green bike path also today, at Martin de Yeltes - when we got on the N road that parallels the A road. RWGPS wanted me to go that direction, but we were following Jacinto's GPS.

Look at you go! It's 2 AM and you found just the spot I was talking about!

I had to check it out also. Outstanding!

Now in 2023, in Braga, reading your well done account!

It’s the actual route, with qualifications. It’s not a track (the upload of our actual route), but rather the route we had mapped out in advance and actually followed. My practice is to update it after the fact with any deviations we took, so in general they’re quite accurate.

Also, they reflect what I came up with as the most promising route after researching the best information I could find - the EV routes, other declared bike routes, RideWith GPS recommendations, and alternatives that just looked better to me.

The dotted lines mean that RideWithGPS believes that portion is unpaved, which can of course mean many things - including that RideWithGPS is just wrong for whatever reason in this instance.

As far as EV8 goes, you should be forewarned that it often takes some pretty problematic (unpaved, in particular) routes in Spain, more so than in France or Italy por ejemplo.

I don’t know what to recommend about following our routes. In general I’m pretty happy with what we came up with, unless something in the text indicates otherwise. Note, by the way, there was a more recent post (the Meyer-Wearys, I think) that tried to take the same approach into Huelva from the west but were thwarted by a bridge outage or something. Probably worth researching to see the current situation.

It strikes me that this track is not your actual route but rather a RWGPS proposed route. That would account for the dotted portions of the track. Are these dots RWGPS's way of telling you the route is dicey? Is there any advantage for us to grab all your tracks for the days along here, as opposed to the "official" EV 8 track. Again (repeating myself because I'm confused) does the map above show what you actually did as described in the text, or what you had earlier planned to do?

I was in Mourão, too, and stayed a night here.

Gotcha!... hadn't got to the following page.

I stayed two nights there. The hotel was quite reasonable and I didn't like the idea of all that climbing for just a day.

I see the cistern was empty on your visit.

Yes, the next day we biked up there on a day ride (read on). Also, on a previous trip in 2013 we stayed there overnight: https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/iberia2013/marvao/. An astonishing spot.

Did you actually go to Marvao? It's a nice place. I kind of bypassed Portalegre on my ride north.

Thanks, Susan! It’s nice getting late messages like this - it stretches the event out longer. Hope you’re well down there. Happy holidays!

A very belated Happy Birthday Scott! Wishing you many more years of inspired, and inspirational, pedaling.
Love the video Rachael - I've always thought that you two rock, but cool jazz seems much more fitting.
I look forward to reading more on your adventures in Spain and SoCal. Enjoy the holidays and best in the New Year.

Thanks again for keeping us company, Angela. We’re sorry to see it end ourselves, although we are enjoying having a whole conversation in English again. It was time for a change, but I’m sure we’ll be back if health and luck hold out.

And thanks for the wishes for our health. We’re both fully recovered, thankfully.

I so enjoyed following your adventures. Thank you for sharing and making it so interesting. I’ll miss my vicarious travel through Spain and Portugal every evening when I read your daily update. Hope you are both feeling better soon.