December 5, 2024
Thoughts on Portugal
A few thoughts about travelling and cycling in Portugal while they are (reasonably) fresh in my mind. Would I go again? Yes, for sure, but probably the Douro Valley and north.
Cycling
Southern Portugal isn't the easiest area to cycle in. We rode on several different surfaces:
- Asphalt (our preference) was sometimes good (thankfully, the asphalt obscured by the rain runoff as we rode to Mértola was in excellent condition. In other places, the asphalt was a patchwork of patches, and in others, including our road as we left Mértola, there were nasty holes yet to be patched.
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Heart 0 Comment 0 Link Log in to comment or reply - Cobbles weren't just limited to historic city centres. In many places, they were the small, throwable kind, while in others, they were beautiful black-and-white patterns (sometimes including other colours) and definitely slippery when wet. Tubeless tires are highly recommended for their low-pressure ride comfort, along with the widest tires you can fit. I had 38s and would put on my fatter tires next time. Al had 35s and will have to suck it up or use a different bike or change his drivetrain (long story).
- Gravel and dirt featured in many parts of the EV1 route, which we occasionally followed. Some parts were easily ridable, some were hike-a-bike (for me more than Al, but he had to walk sometimes too). Sometimes this was worth it, notably between VN de Milfontes and Zambujeira do Mar and the loop around Pontal da Carrapateira. Sometimes it was debatable, no views and only to avoid traffic (Ecovia do Litoral west of Faro) and sometimes it was deep, large gravel difficult even to walk on (both west and east of Tavira).
- Plus a bit of boardwalk, nice and newish and smooth (unlike certain sections of the Lochside trail, as Victoria cyclists can testify)
- Turfstone paving, as in the photo below. Ugh! Luckily there wasn't much of it. It wouldn't be so bad if the voids were actually filled.
Traffic (on roads between towns) ranged from busy, especially in the Algarve, to nonexistent. There were places where there was really just one road between A and B and, for the most part, drivers were okay. Not nearly as courteous as in Spain, but not too bad. Traffic was heaviest and the drivers the worst on the Algarve coast east of Lagos.
Food and Drink
The food in southern Portugal was not bad, but having been to Italy, we are spoiled! I think it's also part of being there in November since, even in Portugal, it's not peak season for fresh produce. Then I looked for a couple of photos to repost here and remembered all the good meals we enjoyed, including several that weren’t traditional Portuguese dining.
As for drink, we are beer and wine people. It's rare we have a whole bottle of wine, and when we do, we invariably drink the whole bottle. So we usually order by the glass or carafe, which limits the available selection. Even so, we always enjoy it; we've only had two bad experiences--at a restaurant in Crescent City(?) when we rode the Oregon coast around 1990 and in France(!) in 1992, when we bought a to-go bottle at a campground bar.
Portugese wine did not disappoint! We enjoyed the wine and could easily have enjoyed more of it, but too much wine makes it hard to ride the next day. The beer wasn't as good as the wine. Super Bock was everywhere and often the only option, though occasionally Sagres was served. We both preferred the "stout" offerings from either of these brewers, even though I'm the stout drinker and Al prefers IPA. At home we buy craft beer but we found it rarely available in bars or restaurants, even if they listed it in the menu. We saw craft beer in shops, but the price was high and we generally don't buy beer in shops when travelling, preferring to enjoy our beverages "out".
We also enjoyed Port a few times. I mean, when in Portugal and especially in Porto... In Lisbon, we tried Ginjinha in chocolate cups. Nice, but it was Port we bought to bring home.
We may not be wine snobs but I suspect we'd be considered coffee snobs. Similar to home, coffee in Portugal ranged from excellent in cafés where it was made on a commercial espresso machine to "why bother" when made on a basic drip machines. The only real difference was cup size.
The disappointing beverage was water. The water itself was fine, once we learned that "fresh" and "natural" refer to the water temperature, with "fresh" meaning cool and "natural" meaning room temperature. The disappointing part was having to pay for it in restaurants since, unlike in France (but sadly like Italy, Spain, and Germany), tap water wasn't an option. As Canadians, we find this irritating since the water that comes out of the tap is just fine.
We also noticed that bread, olives, and sometimes other items that might be on the table when you are seated or brought to the table are not free. There is a charge, sometimes listed in the menu, sometimes not, but we had been warned to expect this so it wasn't a big deal as there's no obligation, but don't touch or you pay!
Trains
There have been many stories about travelling on trains with bikes this year on CycleBlaze. It's something many of us dread and try to avoid, but we started this trip knowing that there would likely be a train involved to return to Lisbon. Then, when it came to it, we ended up taking our bikes to Porto and back too.
The train trips went smoothly and that might be due to purchasing our tickets in person at the station in Évora. We had bike places reserved on each of the three trains we took; he had warned us that not all trains could take bicycles. I saw only one other bike on a train platform and it seemed that all the second-class cars had bike symbols at one end or the other, so there was no problem with finding the designated spaces occupied. The challenge was the usual steep narrow entry, compounded by it being the same entry used by travellers with other large luggage, since the large-luggage racks were at the same end of the train car. The trains we took were Intercity; it looked like the cars on regional trains had wider doors and level entry. This was the case on the trains we took to and from Sintra, but we didn't have our bikes with us.
Big Cities
We really enjoyed Lisbon, Lagos, and Porto and they were highlights of our trip. We only cycled to and from our accommodation, and in Lisbon and Porto, that was only between our accommodation and train or ferry terminals. None of them are what I'd call cycle-friendly, and if I were arriving or leaving by bicycle in a direction without a formal cycle route, I'd seriously consider taking a regional train between the outskirts and the city centre--but I wouldn't skip visiting these cities!
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