Day 21: Vilanova de Santo André to Vilanova Milfontes

March 22, 2023

No Swoop for You!

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Our hotel really had an amazing amount of space. We have stored and organized our bikes in tiny English corridors and up twisting staircases in Amsterdam, but it sure is nice when you don't have to struggle!

This is only half the space in the lobby!

We began by putting our faith in EV-1, and it took us on the A26 (i.e. autobahn/Interstate). We have effectively used the Interstate in the States. With the typical wide shoulder, it can work well - except where there are a lot of on and off ramps. In this case the road was swell. But when we turned off it, it rather seemed like cycles had been forbidden.

No bikes, carts, cows, carts, or other riff raff!

The roads did not deter us from our usual observation of the natural environment around us. We had another look at those Mimosas, which are everywhere, and verified that the leaves are correct for Mimosa.

Ok, we're sure about these yellow puff trees. Now only a million other plants to identify!

This bird was the subject of some debate. I labelled it a "crow" but maybe it is too large for that?

We continue to be wowed by all the flowers growing wild in Portugal. Here we have a field of yellow lupins?

With the help of that A road, we rolled into the north part of Sines in fine shape. We were a bit put out to be greeted there by McDonald's and Burger King, and soon found that the area also featured Intermarche, Continente, and a number of other big retailers. No matter, we were focused on what Kathleen had written, that she had "swooped" down into Sines. Well, we could "see" down into Sines, but for the life of us we could not swoop. We noodled about and noodled about, negotiating stairs in a church yard and taking some narrow laneway towards "down", where we could see other cyclists happily bowling along on a cycle path. Finally we too were down, and looking up to verify that you really can not get here from there!

How do you swoop on this? I think that is our church, with the steps.

From Sines, I think it was EV-1 that took us on the highway, the EN-120, toward Porto Covo. It had no shoulder, as shown below, but riding it did not feel too threatening.

EN 120. We may rely on it a lot in coming days.

We got taken down to the beach, where we found the surf, and of course surfers. We felt like they most floated out there, but occasionally they did catch a wave. The camera reached out into the bay for a piece of the action.

It's a bit of a switch from the surf, but we swung back inland again, to the land of cows and flowers, and back to the sea again, at Porto Covo.

We take these attractive brown cows to be Arouquesa or Alentejana. Both are locally protected names and breeds. Most that we saw had horns, so my shot may be another type. We will watch for them some more.

The red plants and yellow flowers were particularly attractive.

Here too was what I took to be a natural Ukrainian flag. In this case, though, the blue is not the sky but the sea, and the yellow is definitely not wheat.

Nearing Porto Covo, we were again by the sea.

Beautiful shots like this have become commonplace on this trip!

Here, we think, is the hotel that the Classens liked so much. We however, are blowing through town.

Porto Covo, with the blue bottomed houses.

Although this was somehow part of a school, this building is very typical of Porto Covo.

I thought I would throw in this shot of a gas station. Galp is a very common brand. Their orange colour is the same as Gulf uses in the US - coincidence? Note that the price of regular gas is 1.62 euros. That's over $2.30 a litre canadian. American friends - that's $6.25 a gallon to you! (Maybe that's not so bad, gas is about $5/gallon in Seattle right now.) Better to ride a bike!

As we were riding along, looking a cows, gas stations, flowers, with no cares at all, we asked ourselves "What were all our friends talking about when they complained of pushing up hills through sand in this area? Oh well, we seem to be fine!"

Minutes later we came to a fork in the road. The sign said Milfontes (our destination) to the left. No brainer, correct? But Dodie piped up "EV 1 goes right here, should we take it?" My reply: "We have a winning game going on, a good road and a clear sign, forget EV1!" But Dodie has that 51% of voting shares in our expedition (not sure how that happened!) so off we went to the right.

EV 1 suckered us at first with some reasonable road, and once we were sufficiently deep in, it lowered the boom.

If you were going to Milfontes, which way would you turn?

At first the road to the right was ok, and we did get to see the ocean again (no longer a great joy!).

I was hoping to find the Kathleen impossible to push up hill, but it was never quite that bad.

For a lot of the time, we needed to push. Neither of us fancies going down again in sand.

To her credit, Dodie conceded that I had been right at that intersection, and for a time we considered backtracking to it. But we found a way to a paved road and soon were on our way again. If you zoom in on the track map, you can see our moment of indecision, beyond Porto Covo and north of where it says Pouca Farinha. Had we carried on left, we would have rejoined the track near Ribiera, without the trauma.

For tomorrow, we have planned a route that bypasses EV 1, using the EN 120 a lot. We will see how that works.

There was one (for me) major plus for having gone down the EV 1 hole today. In one of the worst areas I came across an EV 1 road sign sticker, the kind that if EV 1 were properly signed, would be stuck on many posts. This one was (fittingly) trampled in the sand. What a trophy! There is scarcely anything so rare as an EV -1 road sign in Portugal! Maybe I could sell it on eBay? but more likely I will glue it to my pannier when we get home!

Once back on track (or, off track?) we could again enjoy the surroundings. Here below is a tree we have seen a lot, but never stopped to investigate. I grabbed one fruit, and in the hotel I was told that this is "nes pereira", which I take to mean just "pear tree". The fruit is sweet and tangy, with a somewhat too tangy skin.

The Lumix ZS-60 camera that we got as recommended by Scott and Suzanne has been working out well. But it is amazing in the number of trick features incorporated. One of these is a burst mode for the shutter. It will take shots like machine gun fire. I thought this could be good to catch fast moving birds in good poses, but tried it for the first time on some slow but fidgety pigeons. Wow, 12 quick shots of some dumb pigeons. But here they are then, looking their best, such as it is.

We arrived at Milfontes and wended our way down to the water side. There we found our hotel, again a sprawling low rise affair.

We were very tickled by what amounted to an internal bike path in the hotel, and the fact that we could roll our bikes on this right into the huge room. It is so nice when all your stuff just comes with you!

The hotel featured a buffet supper for 17 euros. I was interested in this as a chance to browse among some various Portuguese dishes. But although it was good, to be sure, it offered only straight ahead international type foods, like grilled meats, pizza, and salads. We did take the opportunity of going for a "fish", though we do not often choose seafood. Ours was a "Dorado" and I must say he looked rather glum about being charcoal broiled! Dessert was supplied by rather low cost "mousse" options, but Dodie and I got a chuckle from from how we independently chose Mango and also Coffee from the various options. Being together so many years will do that!

And our mousse choices. The while meal was fine, but did not feature any special seasoning, sauces, or cooking techniques.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 733 km (455 miles)

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