October 4, 2013
LISBON: We have made it !
Well we have made it, we have cycled from London to Lisbon covering 3440km and we really feel very proud of ourselves.
I had been a bit concerned about yesterday’s ride. We knew we would be in for lots of hills and were unsure of the route as our maps are very inadequate, they leave out lots of roads and put in fictitious ones and there are few place names. However it was a fantastic day which Ken said he thought was probably the best day of the whole trip. Between Obidos and Azambuja there are a lot of hills. Our plan was not to take the direct road but to pick our way across the country using the GPS and the names of small places we could find on our map. It started with a mega climb up up and up till we were high and there were steep valleys on either side. When we got to the top we were on a ridge which we followed along from one small settlement to the next. It is a wonderful bountiful landscape with vineyards, pear apple and plum orchards. These look to be moderately sized farms rather than huge factory farms. The towns are proper working towns which haven’t yet lost their services. Pears have already been mainly picked but only a few of the apples. We stopped at Vermelha for coffee and it was here that the real excitement began for Ken. He spotted one old tractor with a trailer behind and went over to ’interview’ the owner. It was carting grapes to be processed. Then it was all on, it seemed as if every going vehicle in the area was being used to cart in the harvest and every able bodied person was picking. I particularly liked the rotary hoe that was in action pulling a massive trailer of grapes. In this area the grapes are grown on trellising very similar to that we use rather than pergolas and everything looked very productive. Eventually we ran out of small roads and had to get on to the more direct route to Azambuja.
Azambuja had been our target for the day. The railway station was at the way into town and the hotel about a kilometer out the other side. We decided we would check out trains for Sunday first and two delightful girls guided us there. Arriving at the station it was completely unmanned but there was a completely baffling machine. Azambuja didn’t look the most exciting town so we made an instant decision to catch the train to Lisbon then and there (we had been advised that this last little part was just too dangerous to ride). buying a ticket was a problem but our guardian angel was a young woman who although we had no common language bought our tickets for us showing us how the complicated system worked and escorted us to our train – there was one waiting so we just wheeled the bikes on and 40 minutes later we were wheeling them off at Oriente where our booked hotel was. We thought it would be easy, we would just go to the hotel and book in for an extra night. However we did not know that the massive Lisbon marathon was on the next day and it and all other hotels in the area were booked out for the night. The hotel staff however were really great and they let us leave our bikes and all our gear there. We changed and taking our toothbrushes set off in hunt of a bed for the night just hoping we didn’t have to go too far out. We were lucky however and at the third hotel we tried they told us of another hotel they thought had a vacancy. Quickly we made it to the Tivoli and sure enough they did have a vacancy. We did try and pretend we were paying for a week’s accommodation rather than one nights – it was comfortable!
That was all yesterday. Today we have had a pretty lazy day largely spent watching the huge marathon. It involves 3 races a 10k, a half marathon and a marathon. The participation is enormous and I saw race numbers up to 12000. Back to our original hotel we reclaimed our gear and have settled in here, it is not as luxurious as the Tivoli but very comfortable and will be our home till we fly out on Thursday
Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 3,415 km (2,121 miles)
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