This is another long ago tour I'm resurrecting from a hand written journal I just uncovered under a pile of dust.  This journal was unusual in that it is mostly complete - I was a bit more disciplined back then and succeeded in taking notes throughout the whole tour rather than losing steam partway through.

This was a two stage journey, and about the longest we have taken.  The first leg crossed southern France, beginning in Nice and ending in Barcelona.  From there we rented a car for a few days and drove to Madrid, where we picked up the bikes again and headed west for Portugal.  Overall it was a very experience-rich trip but probably about a week longer than we were up for.  We started getting saddle weary somewhere around the Portuguese border and didn't enjoy the end of the ride as much as we might have done if we were fresher.

Back in 1997 we were both riding standard Cannondale touring bicycles - and I was still on my blue one (I forget the model now) because I hadn't destroyed it yet driving into our garage and forgetting it was atop our Subaru.  This was a pre-electronics trip - no GPS, cell phones, ebooks, or digital cameras - talk about roughing it! - and we still got by without advance reservations and just showed up in town and looked around.

Hope you enjoy the ride, and sorry there aren't more photos - use your imaginations a bit!