A short, fast post for a short, fast ride. It’s just thirty miles from Elvas to tonight’s stop in Estremoz, a lovely white marble town we stayed at before and are eager to see again. The weather has turned beautiful - fair, warm, almost fifteen degrees warmer than when we biked in to Elvas. It’s not flat, but the climbs are all so gradual that it feels like it; and we even have a bit of a tail wind scooting us along.
Quiet roads, open landscape, good views. Pretty much an ideal ride. We’ll let the photos and video do the talking.
Happy to have made it down our steep flight of stairs without breaking our necks, we saddle up for the day’s ride.
The aquaduct crosses over the road a few times - in town, in the photo above, and now here as we look back through it toward Elvas. It’s still going about two miles west of town when it bends to the south and leaves the road.
10K to Orada, where we’ll stop on a bench in the shade for lunch. We won’t be having fish for lunch though, in spite of the name (orata is the name for sea bream in Italy and Spain, but I think not in Portugal).
We’re on Ecovia 11 here, a bike route that could carry us all the way to Estremoz if we cared to leave the pavement at some point. With no one else to speak of on the road though, we’re content to stick with the pavement.
We’re starting to get that Mediterranean look. A good thing, too - it’s starting to get late in the year. Like the storks, we need to head south for the winter.
We arrive at our hotel at three, check in, and then Rachael steps out for a longish walk while I rest up from our taxing ride for an hour before leaving for my own shortish, slowish walk through town. Coincidentally again, as seems to keep happening, we’ll cross paths with each other up by the castle and walk back to the room together.
The big drama for the day, for one short on it, comes at dinner - a wonderful one, at the highly recommended Venda Azul. It’s a place you should go to - great food, great service, warm and welcoming, quite inexpensive (as is nearly everything in Portugal, we’re finding) - but it’s a small place and you should make a reservation if you want to be sure of getting a table.
But it comes with a warning - be careful what you order, or rather how much you order. We ordered a bowl each of the soup of the day (excellent - chicken and barley), which was large enough to share. I finished mine, and the waiter wanted to know if I’d like more. Rachael wisely left some in the bowl to save room for her main dish. For mains, we each ordered half portions - I asked for secreto, and she had grilled chicken. Only the grilled chicken arrived though, on a huge platter piled with three large chicken breasts, a mountain of fries, and another of rice. Huge, enough for both of us - and delicious, the chicken grilled to perfection.
We shared the chicken dish, all the while dreading the appearance of my own entree, hoping against hope that our server had either misheard us or knew better and was saving us from our gluttony. We’d have to do something credible with it if it came, but we feared ruining our AFD streak on an exploding abdomen catastrophe.
It never came, thankfully. Realizing that was the high point of an already great day. We’re not going to explode! We laughed giddily about it all the way back to our room.
Estremoz is awesome. It reminds me of Trujillo in some ways - just the right size, full of interest, not so famous that it’s packed with crowds. It would be a good base for several days of cycling. We’ll post photos from the walk separately.
Like in Elvas, many of the sidewalks are colorfully patterned. These are constructed from white marble, presumably from the quarries we can see just outside of town.
Tricia GrahamThat was the thing we found about meals when we bikes in Portugal - the portions were far to big and no matter how hard you tried you couldnt get smaller ones I will never forget the time I ordered lasagna and got enough to feed a family of about 6 Reply to this comment 5 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Tricia GrahamWe’re still trying to figure it out. We did it again tonight. I think we’ll try skipping the appetizer course next and see how that goes. Reply to this comment 5 years ago
Tricia GrahamTo Scott AndersonI was told that it was a slight if you didn’t leave some food and showed that they were not generous enough. What a wasre Reply to this comment 5 years ago
