Day 22: Vilanova Milfontes to Aljezur

March 23, 2023

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Dodie showed me a bunch of lurid photos from the Classens' pages titled "Sand and Scenery" and "Rumours of Hills in Portugal are True!" covering between the two entries our possible route for today, depending how much we would stick with EV 1. "Lurid" in cycle blogging terms refers to images that get the blood pumping: hills, sand, traffic. I looked at these and together we made up a route almost entirely off EV 1, using instead the highways N393 and N 120.

Last night the buffet had been filled with very loud twenty year olds, speaking English, and inhaling vast quantities of foodstuffs. We thought little of it, except for not being able to hear ourselves speak. This morning, the restaurant was serious about its 7:30 start hour, and in front of the closed door at 7:25 the whole gaggle of twenty year olds was assembled. When the door opened they charged in, but this time were totally silent. Kids are not at full power in the morning. But their ability to inhale food was intact. Fortunately there was lots, and we could straggle behind collecting what we needed. I turned out that these were a Canadian kayaking team, here to train on the nearby rather large Mira river.

We left the hotel not long after the kids, pushing our bikes along the corridor and up that great internal ramp. We had to climb back through the town for our turn toward the south. I noticed some of the quirks that we had seen on the way in - like the mini market, the super market, and the ultra market all side by side the main street. I must admit that observations like this are not material for a tourist brochure. Fortunately I have no copy editor for what goes in this blog (especially since Dodie us taking a nap!).

The town was cute, but as they say, nothing to write home about.

Out by the river, we spied some paddlers though not necessarily our group. We could also look back to the mouth of the river, near where the hotel is situated, and across to the town. The town sport the white walls and red roofs characteristic of the area.

We started out on the highway, which had a shoulder for a while and then, not. Traffic was fairly heavy. We knew the key to whether there was too much traffic was the extent to which drivers passing us could easily find space in the oncoming lane, or whether they would have to contend with cars coming the other way. For a while it was touch and go, and when we passed the turnoff for what would continue as EV 1, we stopped and thought about it.

The highway was fine, except when filled with traffic.

In looking here at the EV-1 turnoff, we were thinking not only of the Classens' experience, but of the 20-30 extra kms involved. We gave it a miss.

Our route planning had identified only two significant hills on the way, one at San Teotonio and one at Odeceixe. San Teotonio turned out to be mostly a non-event, but Odeceixe was pretty serious. "Ode" must mean something in Portuguese, because the hill involved descending to, crossing, and climbing away from the Ceixe river. Fortunately the climb out was switch backed, and Dodie was able to ride it all the way. This is also due, by the way, to the fact that she is now rapidly on the mend. The rib does not hurt as much and she is almost ready to be done with the antibiotic.

One of the drawbacks of taking the highway today was that although we were riding through pleasant enough pine scrub forest, with a goodly representation of roadside flowers, there really was not much of terrific interest. This had us speculating. In Mexico, for example, on entering a town you will see people going about their "traditional" activities - even if they are rather modern, like riding their cargo trikes, grilling chicken by the roadside, making tortillas in little factories, hanging out in the central square, or attending the giant former Spanish church. But here in Portugal it is more like France, Germany, England - you roll into a town and you may see not a soul. We tested this as we entered Rogil, seen below. At first we thought we would truly see nobody, but then we did encounter a young man bringing plastic bottles to the recycle bins. "Bem Dia!" At least it had not been a total shutout.

Those recycle bins could be serving as a community focus, in Rogil.

There was quite a long descent into Aljezur. You can judge from this photo whether traffic was light enough for comfort. It looks kind of marginal to me. But the shoulder is wide enough here to make a difference,

The main town seems to be across the valley from where our hotel, the Vicentina, is.

We could only find a (for us) rather pricey "studio" room in Aljezur. While we don't like the cost, we do like the fact that the bikes can choose any of a number of spots to be in the room with us, and I am typing this on a full sized dining table, rather than my usual, which is the top of the bed, with some sort of chair pulled up beside.

Today was my first day trying out just shorts with no tights and no long sleeve Merino. The temperatures were again in the 17-23 range and the wind moderate. It almost worked, but tomorrow it will be back to the warmer clothes. Even so, 17-23 is very comfortable, the sun has been shining, and there are flowers, trees, birds, rivers, ocean to look at, so cycling is great!

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 791 km (491 miles)

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