Day 8: Tavira to Ayamonte, Spain

March 25, 2025

A deliberately short ride through small roads and dirt tracks

A dirt, marked cycle path between two housing developments west of Vila Real. One such had several hundred homes vacant and unoccupied

This crossing to Spain was so mellow we sat on the upper deck.

View from my hotel room. Foia is in the far distance and about 80 km away

Waking to blue skies and eating breakfast outside. Woot. We planned a short day on purpose. Normally, for a two week trip, I’d have one full rest day. A ten day one makes that a bit more challenging given our route, and we were trying to keep the distances to 90 km.

Using cycle.travel to plan our route, it took us through more orange groves, avoiding the busy N 125 except for two very short sections, each of about 1 km long. The route had a few dirt sections some on roads, others through the woods near the ocean. We agreed that it was a much better alternative, and the dirt had dried up as well.

We arrived in Vila Real de Santo Antonio in perfect time to catch the 12:30 ferry to Ayamonte, Spain. The fifteen minute ferry disembarked us at 13:45 local time as one loses an hour returning to Spain. A short but steep climb brought us to our parador for the night. We’d booked a half board through a third party site and got a very good package rate. From our rooms, we can see Foia’s 902 meter high peak, which we’d been on top of yesterday.

Today was the first day we could wear just short sleeve jersey, and no leg warmers. Initially, I wondered why my panniers seemed so full, as one would think I’d get the packing down after a week. Then it was aha, not wearing a base layer or wool jersey, etc. The nice weather is forecast to be with us for our remaining two days into Sevilla.

Today's ride: 28 km (17 miles)
Total: 570 km (354 miles)

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