Since we had a short ride to Moura planned (all the way to Monsaraz would be too far today), we had time to see the sights of Serpa in the morning.
But first, breakfast. It was included in our room rate and was okay, but not the greatest. No granola or meusli, no eggs, just breads, cheese, cold meats (not my breakfast preference) and a small assortment of pastries. There was yogurt, fresh orange juice, and decent coffee so not too bad. I guess we’ve been spoiled!
A quick walk to see the city wall and the castle, then it was time to get into our riding kit, load the bikes, and go. It was also time for the grey skies to start spitting at us, but it never really rained on us.
Steve Miller/GrampiesEverybody on the internet calls this an aqueduct, but they are guessing, just as you were. It's a famous sight, though, used for instance by the City in their "Visit Serpa" material. Reply to this comment 1 month ago
The route to Moura was mostly through olive orchards and vineyards. We also passed orchards of bare trees or trees with very few leaves. I think these trees were some other crop; Al wonders if they were olive trees that had been machine-harvested. I didn’t take any photos because the light was flat, until…
I had to take a picture of this because, like Spain, it seems cemeteries in Portugal have WCs. At least, this one did.
I was riding along, thinking about all the majestic old olive trees and the rows of white-tube-protected baby olive trees, when I saw the sad intermediate step.
All these trees have been cut but they aren’t big old ones, based on their trunk diameters.
We arrived in Moura and found our hotel around 1 but check-in wasn’t until 3. With two hours to kill, we used the public washrooms at the municipal market building to change into street clothes and then found a quiet tapas bar to hang out in. We had salad Russo (I was expecting potato salad but it had (imitation?) crab, peas, and carrots and was very good. So was the calamari that followed, accompanied by fried potato discs.
Two hours too early to check in. What should we do now?
Karen PoretYou could get a “super discount” on your room if you volunteered to attach the missing “o” on the wall..;) Reply to this comment 1 month ago
As we were sitting and waiting (and I was writing this), it started raining hard enough to set off my Scout bike alarm! Glad we are inside!
Conveniently, the rain let up just at 3 so we grabbed our wet bikes and walked the couple of blocks to our hotel. We hung out in our room and warmed up (we were both a bit chilled) until it was time to go out for a look around. We got to the castle just as they were closing the gates so we will be back at opening time tomorrow.
Next up was finding a place to eat tonight. None of the restaurants we walked by showed any signs of opening tonight; we were peering at the business hours sign of one with lights on inside trying to figure it out when a fellow returning there came along to tell us that they were usually open Sundays but were closed this week until Friday. We eventually found a kebab place that was open so we didn’t need to go to bed hungry.
