October 19, 2013
Estremoz
I'm starting to fall in love with Portugal. The rains arrived last night around midnight, poured for a few hours, and then tapered off. Now, over breakfast, the skies are clearing again and the forecast for the rest of the day and tomorrow looks beautiful - sunny with tailwinds. What more can you ask of a country than to have its rainstorms pass in the night?
Today was another terrific 4 star day - well, maybe only 3.9 because this was the day our patience with Portuguese paving stones gave out. Most of Portugal's town and village streets are surfaced in a way I don't remember seeing anywhere else - a mosaic of squarish stones about 2 inches across covers the streets and sidewalks in most towns and villages we pass through. They are quite attractive, but awful to bike over. We've gotten accustomed to them by now and just brace ourselves for the shock when we enter a town. Today was too much though - we couldn't believe it when we left Vila Vicosa and the stones contined on for another 3 miles, all the way to the next town, Borba. Not fair.
Other than that, the day was one of the best of the tour. It began with a fast paced 20 mile stint to Redondo through nearly level open ranch land. It had just enough variation and color to avoid being monotonous, which was fine with us. We were in a bit of a hurry, wanting to leave as much time as we could for exploring the famed marble towns of Vila Vicosa and Estremoz. Our big highlight for the morning was watching a several hundred yard long formation of cattle contentedly devouring a line of freshly dropped hay.
After a brief pit stop (and a half mile of cobblestones) we left Redondo and turned northward on N254 toward Vila Vicosa. This was a much prettier stretch of road - after climbing up several hundred feet we reentered oak and eucalyptus territory. We continued to climb until a few miles short of Vila Vicosa, when we dropped down to a district predominated by marble quarries, weird pyramid-shaped mountains of quarry waste (the largest features onthe landscape by far - from a distance, I initially mistook them for a string of towns) - and, cobblestone hell.
Vila Vicosa and Estremoz both lived up to their reputations though, and were ample reward for our rough ride. They are both remarkable places and delights to wander around - especially Estremoz, which left us wishing we had more time to spend on it. It is amazing to see a town where beautiful marble is the most readily available material and used for practically everything. Even ordinary houses and small shops are graced with marble foundations and window frames.
Elevation log: 2400 today, 17,000 total.
Today's ride: 49 miles (79 km)
Total: 355 miles (571 km)
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