HUH! Said one of the men last seen approaching before I go back inside to pack panniers. I return out of the tent in a heart beat ready with an answer. They are in uniforms, two policemen and wanting to remain on their good side I ask "English?" as they peer down on my tent. "No camping here!" says the shorter officer. I plead "I came off the ferry late yesterday and had no where else to sleep. I'm taking the tent down this instant..." He smiles. And with a glance to the other nods and they continue walking.

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There isn't a cloud in the sky as I watch the sun's molten disc rise across the estuary beyond dockland cranes and industry's pipes emitting white vapour columns. I expect to reach Lisbon early before cloud brews up, though it looks like the rain has passed and we're in for a find day.

I cycle back along the quay towards town. All the fish restaurants I passed yesterday evening are shut and lifeless. No chance of Breakfast here. A little further there's a place calling itself a "Snack Bar" I like the word snack. Means an unsatisfying little. I'm starving and will be wanting a lot more.

A group of burly stubble-faced men warmly dressed in old clothes, stand outside in golden low autumnal sunshine smoking watch with interest as I lift the bike up upon the kerb and lean it against a sapling. I enter. More burly men line the bar, some with small cups of espresso on the bar-top as the machine hisses and I get the young bartender's attention.

"Un café gran con leche!" I shout out above the noise. Then point at a thick slice of Madeira cake in the glass display cabinet, then a big Danish pastry.

The bartender pours the coffee in a glass and tops the glass up with frothy milk. I pay a modest three euros. The cake and pastry are on separate plates so I rest the Danish on top of the cake while carrying to a seat by a window table just vacated, where I'll be able to watch the bike.

The yellow Madeira is more than a snack and the Danish is big too, full of raisins and red and green jelly sweets. The coffee is a little on the weak side though.

There is a look at rush-hour traffic on the TV, ending with a shot of the Golden Gate-like suspension bridge into Lisbon. Then the weather. Clouds and rain on the northern half of the map, sun in the south. Then there's a report with a young diva, a modern day Fado singer, the traditional Portuguese song of seafarers. Back in the early noughties while working at night I'd tune to the BBC World Service and one of my favourite programs was Charlie Gilets' World of Music, which featured a young Fado singer called Marisa. I went to see her play in Oslo. The live incarnation of a then recently released CD. The shorthaired blond pranced across the stage energetically and down the aisle into the audients while delivering song in a melodic Portuguese accent.

I get a second coffee at the bar and return to my seat. This one is much stronger. The café empties. The men walk off across the quay to a fish processing building and a truck-driver returns to a parked artic and climbs into the cab. I sip the last of the coffee down and an old man under an old fashion black flat cap at the next table leafs through a broadsheet.

I leave town following signs for A2 Lisboa / Algarve and N10. The later is a good single-carriageway with a smooth small-car wide shoulder. At the city-limit I pass a sign Lisboa 38 km. Less than expected. It shows forty-four on the Michelin map. The way ahead is a gradual incline up a wooded slope for about twelve kilometres. Racing-cyclists, both power up by me and swoop down the other side tucked low on their bars.

I crest the hill. Ahead I look across woodland stretching to distant clusters of high-rise blocks peaking above the treeline and as I'm in full momentum, I gun the cycling engine, that is the lungs and legs, bowling along on the big chain-ring as the road by-passes satellite towns and into increasing urban landscape. Then passing a Lisboa 14 km sign, the N10 goes along a slip-road onto a divided highway which looks not unlike motorway, even though there weren't any no cycling signs, and a bit in I pass a kilometre marker with the road number, A2. I am indeed on the motorway.

I am hoping to leave at the next exit, but at the same time don't fancy getting lost and taking all day getting into the centre; and momentarily, am afraid a traffic patrol may come up behind me any moment and hand me out a forty-five euro find. The thing is, while expecting an exit not far ahead and for every town each kilometre or so, there isn't. I'm on and there's no way off. Supposedly an expressway in a true sense of the word. No getting off but a fast run into the city.

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A few cars sound their horns in protest. Okay. I know. What's wrong with these people. If I could get off I would. At last with the bridge into the centre in view, I come to an exit for the town of Almada. There is a climb up between drab mid-twentieth century commercial blocks with tramlines at street-level into town and the same street continues downhill to a waterfront and a terminal for a ferry cross to Lisbon. The ticket is one euro seventy and the next embarkation is a ten minute wait.

I had downloaded a hostel site Google map showing the centre on the netbook. But I can't find my bearings. And the Portugal map with Lisbon city plan given to me by the Oregan cycling-couple in Sevilla looks completely different to the online map.

I cycle from the ferry terminal along the waterfront with the suspension bridge in the background. Come to a large square with an archway on the inner side and an equestrian monument in the middle. I can't relate this to none of the maps. I crouch into the shade of a doorway in order to see the screen. Then I see the street up from the quay I'm looking for. It goes uphill from a little square opposite where I come off the ferry.

The street is extremely steep with a narrow sidewalk which I push the bike up, stopping regularly to let pedestrians coming down around me. It is well I've changed into my comfortable spare shoes. The hostel street is got to via a side street on the left. All the streets on that side are steep alleyways down and up the other side to stairs at the far side. It'll be a hell of a lift with the bike. I will have to go round another way.

The hostel has no dorms, only doubles at forty-eight euros. The receptionist gives me directions to another hostel a few streets away. On the way in I'd leant my bike against a Kona cyclo-cross fitted with a rack. I owned an Explosiff, then a Pahoehoe. My Fire Mountain was stolen. On the way back out the bike's owner, a young Ozzie corners me. He has cycled from Scotland and wants to do more touring in future, but wishes to use a combo of front and rear panniers instead of all the weight on the back and looks at mine with interest. The Kona classic fork has mudguard eyelets but no drilling for lowriders.

The other hostel is in an eighteenth century old town house with high ceiling with cornices round the sides and central rose and shutters on the windows. I'm shown into a six bed dorm all to myself for fifteen euros. Once I've showers and changed, I sit down to editing photos. It take a frustratingly long time and its evening when I finish.

In the kitchen a French couple have cooked too much tagatellia pasta and say for me to help myself. They are actually Quebecois when we get talking. All I need to cook is a sauce from ingredients bought at the small supermarket at the end of the street. They also leave me a bag of grated cheese and the Portuguese red bought for one seventy-nine is a delicious wine, together with green olives, a fitting end to a long day.