We had seen and been served Castello water but hadn’t realized it came from Moura. The first source, 120 years ago, was actually within the castle. These panels tell the story.
We came up this street when we rode into town and the little tapas bar we enjoyed yesterday is here too. It’s a pretty street but the light isn’t good this morning.
Then it was time to pack up and ride to Estremoz. Strike that—Monsaraz! I booked our accommodation before we left Moura and worried throughout the ride that I’d somehow messed up and booked (and paid for) accommodation in the wrong place. I had realized that I was looking at two different destinations before actually making the booking, but still!
It was a nice ride through olive groves with a few vineyards and lakes/reservoirs. Then a stiff climb at the end because Monsaraz is a hilltop castle village.
The bridge across the Rio Ardila had a nice bench for pedestrians to take a break.
Crossing Rio Ardila, I though it might be the outlet of Albufeira de Alqueva, the giant reservoir, but no, it’s a tributary to the Guadiana, the river dammed to form the reservoir, below the reservoir.
The road passed through olive groves like this one, vineyards, and fields ready for their next crop.
We arrived and rode/walked to our accommodation but we were an hour ahead of check-in time and nobody was there. So we locked up our bikes and went for lunch. O Gazpacho was just up the street and the food was excellent. We ordered spinach quiche with tomato salad and tortilla (Spanish potato dish) and shared them, along with some olives and cheese. And black tea, wonderful when it’s cold.
Bill Shaneyfelt
Castor beans just like we grew outside our back door when I was a kid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricinus Reply to this comment 1 month ago
Shortly after 3, the check-in time, we headed to our room but still, nobody there. We sent a message and called via WhatsApp but no response. We were getting cold so contacted Booking because the place looked dead. Someone would get back to us in 24 hours, they said. We walked up to talk to the very friendly proprietor of O Gazpacho because we figured he probably knew whoever ran the guesthouse. He did, and called him. While I waited, Al walked up to the TI to see about options if the place was indeed closed. The suggested alternative was the one I had listed in my spreadsheet, which everyone seemed to suggest, but whose website said was “temporarily closed” when I’d checked this morning (I had it listed as my preferred option) probably so the owner could take some time off during slow November.
In any case, the proprietor of O Gazpacho learned that the owner of Dom Nuno had experienced some car trouble and was delayed (or maybe he wasn’t aware he had a booking, though the place is supposedly open all year). In any case, our helper at O Gazpacho got us a code to get in and our room number so we could settle in, much appreciated!
We later learned that the guesthouse owner hadn’t received my messages or calls because he only used WhatsApp on wifi. Meanwhile, we are limited to WhatsApp because (1) even the least expensive roaming plan available to us as Canadians costs twice as much as an eSIM for a month and (2) a Portuguese eSIM that includes voice and text requires the purchaser to have a Portugal tax number (and yes, this is the eSIM offered to tourists by Vodafone). So communication didn’t happen.
Re your issues with Portuguese e-sim’s, on our last two trips to Europe (our 2023 France - Spain trip journaled here and a short trip we took to Scotland this spring) we’ve bought the Orange Holiday Europe e-sims, https://travel.orange.com/en/buy-a-sim/offers/europe.
You get a French phone number with unlimited calls within Europe (read as Schengen as I think this includes Switzerland and Norway, and it even applied to Scotland!), unlimited texts, loads of data (30 GB per month) and even several hours of ‘international’ calls … i.e the rest of the ‘developed’ world. It all seemed to work seamlessly in Spain and in the UK so I have no reason to think it wouldn’t work in other EU countries.
Even better, we could install everything at home, sipping a coffee in front of the desktop, and then simply activate it once we landed in Europe. Even though it’s s French phone number, you don’t need to be in France to activate it (case in point our Scotland experience). For a month it worked out to be about C$2 per day, less than a cup of coffee (at least here) and you had all forms of communication available. It;s also very easy to top up for additional weeks or months and is good for a six month period.
As you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of the service. Reply to this comment 1 month ago
Jacquie GaudetTo Lyle McLeodWe had Orange Spain eSIMs for our trip in 2021 but have used data-only eSIMs from Airalo since then as they are half the price of other Orange offerings (which I recall being only for 2 weeks at a time). We use our home numbers to contact friends and family (and each other) via WhatsApp—and messages show up on our Garmins. This is the first time we’ve encountered a European who didn’t use data! I note that Koodo, our home provider, now has a one-month roaming plans for Europe that’s reasonably competitive (around $60 vs $24 for Airalo) but Vodafone Portugal was a sweet spot, data plus calling (even to Canada) plus text for about $30–the catch being you needed a Portugal tax number, whatever that is. Reply to this comment 1 month ago
