It was fun constructing conspiracy theories about the breakfast procedures at the Sea Garden Residence. But as you might predict, when it really came to it there was no drama and no problem. In fact the breakfast room was deserted, and the breakfast was super, with no one running a timer as we made our repeated trips to the serving counters for all the yummy stuff.
We set off to have a look at Peniche, which you can see on the track above is a peninsula. We circled the outside a bit to catch an ocean lookout, and then we cut through the centre, to see what there might be in terms of architecture, shops, or people.
Yes, the ocean waves crash in here, but not more than elsewhere on this coast. The spray freaked me by getting to my camera, send us scurrying to dig out dry type lens cloths. Seawater in the camera? no, no!
We are sad to report that we found Peniche underwhelming. Perhaps we are getting used to the generally wonderful ocean, but also the place lacked any real centre, certainly not an "old town" or pedestrian shopping street, or impressive church. Have a look:
closest thing in Peniche to a central square or park.
In the earlier days of this tour we had gorgeous Porto, followed by terrific and not so hilly bike paths. This came to an end at Nazare, when things switched to quiet, somewhat hilly roads, with few bike paths. Now, leaving Peniche, is when we have first encountered fairly heavy traffic in hard to negotiate roundabouts, plus many really steep hills. Admittedly there is still the surf, and the fields of vegetables. When Brent Irvine did more or less the ride we did today, he was blown away by the thrill of the upping and downing, the surf, and the general surroundings. But we would have to say we were not so amused. I can say that especially about sections I did three times, helping Dodie to get up the ups.
The shots below show what housing is like near Seixal, one of the towns we passed through on the coast. Literally all the construction on this "Silver Coast" looks new (under 40 years old) to us. There is no "ancient" feel to the place at all. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since we have here a light and colourful modern esthetic, which can be ok. It's just not what we are pre-programmed to expect in Europe. It's true that there was a massive earthquake here in 1755, but that can not be the whole explanation. For people who know the country, what we are observing here will be something obvious and well known. We are just trying to figure things out as we go along, and observe little bits at a time. It's more of a research project than an Inquisition!
One of the main claims to fame of Lourinha is the discovery of dinosaur fossils here. This does not mean that there is a heavyweight museum (such as is being built at Progreso in Yucatan, near where the extinction asteroid struck). Rather, there are a bunch of dinosaur statues around town, plus businesses with dinosaur based names, like the Dino Launderette.
Th real claim to fame of Lourinha for us was the presence of Intermarche, Lidl, and Spar - some of our favourite groceries. But the town also has lots of traffic, cementing today as our first in which we felt we were somewhat fighting with cars.
Amplifying the sort of fighting with cars theme, we see here riding the white line. There is a bit of a shoulder, but also a ditch to be avoided beside that. Being on this road may be part of where we avoided EV1, but EV1 uses this (N247) in parts also.
We have really not seen many churches in this part of the country, and certainly no huge or elegant cathedrals (except for Porto). This church tower therefore caught our attention. It looks vaguely Moorish as well. But the church was built recently, and inside iotally modern (boring) design. Interestingly we soon climbed well above the tower height, just by following the road.
When we met with the Classens back home and went over their rides south of Lisbon, we learned that they had circumvented EV 1 on occasion to avoid sandy or otherwise bad sections. So we have their tracks with us, to help avoid the same sections. Here, north of Lisbon we do have Brent Irvine's observations and tracks, but we are also forging our own way. Basically, EV1 wants to go down to the surf whenever possible and to go up and down headlands. But that can lose its charm, even for Brent, who enjoys the hills way more than us. (OK, we HATE hills.). Today we improvised, and jumped on and off EV1 throughout. For tomorrow, we've had it with climbing, and so have plotted our own way, using cycle.travel. Our revised route does follow some Brent, and some EV 1, but we are also using cycle.travel's paved/unpaved road option. It will be a big day for us, and our destination is now Sintra. From there we are thinking to find a train into Lisbon, to avoid any unnecessary traffic.
The tangled purple lines show the EV1 track and our own actual track. It's hard to see which is which. For tomorrow we have improved our technology and will be looking at a purple line for EV1, light blue for Brent Irvine, dark blue for cycle.travel on paved roads and red for cycle.travel's route on paved or unpaved roads. They all have a lot of climbing, but with all this we are unlikely to get lost!
Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles) Total: 461 km (286 miles)
Rate this entry's writing
Heart
10
Comment on this entry
Comment
1
Kathleen ClassenOur ride from Sintra to Lisbon was one of the favourites of the tour. Once we got to Cascais it was mostly bike path all the way into Lisbon primarily along the water, and primarily flat. Reply to this comment 1 year ago
