March 24, 2025
Day 7: pre breakfast climb up Foia, ride to Silves, train to near Faro, ride to Tavira
Experiencing several seasons in one day
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As the only guests as Casa Dos Batalim in Monchique (pronounced like its French), we made a quick coffee and climbed Foia before breakfast. The Volta route goes up the N266, starting out with a very punchy 12% ramp on cobbles, then settling in to a mostly steady 7% for 7 km. Total climb from Monchique is about 450 meters. A mass of radar, cell towers and vacant, at this time, tourist infrastructure makes for a rather drab climax to the climb. The monument to the tired cyclist had fallen over. It was really cold and windy, and we were just below the scudding clouds. Temp was about 5 C with steady 40 mph winds. Our summit time was deliberately short.
Expecting a delicious eggs Benedict breakfast at vélo chique, we descended to town in about 12 minutes. Alas, the restaurant had had a catering event the previous evening and had no hot food. ☹️ We debated going to the Intermarché, but decided to have a quick coffee and croissant, then go to a Belgian place in Silver for lunch. The 18 km descent on the N266 to the N124 intersection was a joy, smooth pavement, little traffic, and we even occasionally exceeded the posted 50 kph limit a few times. Stripping off layers once we got to sea level, we turned east on the chunky N124 to Silves.
Compromisso proved to serve a wonderful lunch. Dan and I split a Karmaliet bottle, he had a huge salad, while I ate a fettucine with almond pesto. The Silves train station is a few km from the town centro, up a hill. The exit was marked, then no signs at the first rotary (I call them that instead of roundabouts as I lived in Massachusetts for a while), so we had to poke around a bit to find the right route.
The train station is a nice structure, but closed. So we waited outside for the train. We decided to get off at the Parque das Cidades stop, one before Faro, to avoid riding in dense streets. Despite passing us several times, the conductors never asked us about tickets, so our journey was gratis. Unfortunately, Portuguese are no different from others on trains, and two people played TV very loudly on their phones for the entire one hour trip. They were part of a group of four, drinking some liquid out of a 2 liter ice tea bottle that was not the color of tea. They also got off at the same stop as us, climbing onto the roof of that station to collect some stuff, and went off on their electric scooters.
The 40 km from the station to the Ozadi Tavira hotel travelled many of the same roads we’d done a few days earlier in the pouring rain and wind. It was delightful to enjoy these quiet roads in the sun. We’d arranged ahead of time to order the tagliatelle for dinner. I’d eaten it for lunch and it was perfect. The hotel said they could accommodate us if we ate early at 19:00, as that option was not available after 17:30, and they didn’t want to offend any other guests. That agreement was fine with us as we were hungry. We each had a big salad, and shared a bottle of excellent Esperao organic wine from Aljetejo.
After two long days, we decided that day 8 will be short, going directly to Ayamonte, Spain, for a 30 km ride.
Today's ride: 92 km (57 miles)
Total: 542 km (337 miles)
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