For a long time we did not know how to call this blog entry... "Don't visit Portugal by bike" or "Fuck Portugal". Thinking about all the suicidal drivers and the absurdly poor quality of the roads, that would be a legitimate title indeed. However, we encountered so much friendliness away from the streets and the weather has shown itself from a better side from time to time, so that we now have corrected the title a bit :-) however read it yourself!
After a long time we woke up again on Saturday morning (29/10) in another country and this time also in a warm, dry and comfortable bed. I really enjoyed sleeping through the night in peace and dry, as the last few nights weren't that relaxing after all due to the rain and wind. At the weekend, Maria and Jose have a tradition that everyone has breakfast together, as it can be difficult to find a time together in the mornings during the week. We find it a nice habit! During breakfast, we realized that the two of them are actually "us" and in 30 years. We spent the rest of the morning walking up some steep stairs in town and arrived at a church on a hill/mountain (definitely too steep). From there, we had a fantastic view of the city. In the church itself we were allowed to witness the beginning of a baptism. Including vocals! When we stepped out of the church again, we witnessed a mystical spectacle of the fog with the church and the city.
At noon we met with Maria and Jose in the apartment and Jose conjured up a really delicious roast! In return for the food, we promised the two of them to cook for everyone in the evening. Jose even helped us with our shopping which was super handy as he knew exactly what to find where! I wish we had a local shopping companion more often! While I then snuggled up in bed again for a nap, Tilman drove to the beach with the two of them.
When they came back, Florian, whom we have already met several times, had also arrived. Sometimes the world is just very small! When we started cooking, Maria almost fell off the stool when she saw the amount of sugar for the Swedish Kladdkaka. But what can you do :P Just as we were talking about how ice cream would go well with it too, Jose quickly walked out of the apartment and we thought he was coming back with a carton of ice cream. Instead, he had another cyclist, Nicolas, (this time from Ukraine) in tow. He wasn't the vanilla ice cream we had hoped for, but we were happy to see him anyway. And he was happy to be in the dry! The whole evening turned out to be a nice social gathering and to finish we watched some impressions of the "randonée" Paris-Brest-Paris on YouTube. I fear Jose has Tilman there with something infected ... I see in any case Maria and me already in 5 years somewhere on the track and support the two!
On Sunday (30.10.) we benefited from the time in two ways. A day before we have already gained an hour with the border crossing to Portugal and overnight again one by the changeover to winter time. Means: I could enjoy the warm and cozy bed a little longer! Four of us then got ready and left the city together in beautiful sunshine - just as we had imagined Portugal!
Since we all lead different speeds, we scattered with the time. Only with Nicolas we were sure that we would see him again - because he has the same Warmshowers host in Porto for the night!
Tilman and I decided to drive a bit along the beach and chilled a lot on the way! A small visit to Lidl let us then again feel a bit of home - THANKS to Lidl for the first gingerbread this year! Unfortunately, it should become less fun after that... The drivers in Portugal are really the biggest disaster - so often I have rarely had to use my middle finger! So we decided to take the smaller roads, which were all cobblestone without exception. And if you drive on them all day, then unfortunately the fun stops here! There was a third alternative: the EuroVelo1 - a part of a European long-distance cycle path, which unfortunately had "EuroVelo quality" - worse than we were used to from other EuroVelos. The missing signage we made up by Tilman's navigation skills, but as the EuroVelo then began to lead through pedestrian zones and we would have to cheat us through walkers, we left this also quite quickly. It was unfortunately not available anyway... Tilman correctly remarked that we now understand better why the French name their EuroVelos differently. There the EuroVelo 4 is called "Velo Maritime" and the EuroVelo 1 "Velodysee" - they don't want to be associated with the quality of the EuroVelos! You can already tell that cycling in Portugal was rather less fun for us that day.... So we arrived with some delay at our WS host in Porto. As expected, we met Nicolas at Vijay's who arrived there an hour before us. Together we ate delicious quiche and talked about cycling and traveling.
Right after breakfast on Monday (31.10.) Nicolas left us highly motivated to drive some more kilometers. In the meantime, we had again turned on a washing machine with our clothes and waited for it to finish and we could hang them up. When this was done, the rain outside unfortunately still had not subsided and so we enjoyed it for once from inside and in the dry.
Around noon, the weather was finally such that one could dare to go outside. Before heading towards the planetarium, we quickly dropped off Vijay's key at his work. The planetarium in Porto is attached to the (Astro)Physics Institute. In the anteroom they have super much space for exhibitions. For example, you can find something about gravity, asteroids and a cool board game with giant dice where you can hop through the solar system!
With Elsa we talked a lot about science communication and how difficult it is to stay in science. What is mega cool is that the planetarium in Porto produces fulldome films themselves. So they don't have to rely on buying certain films. They also train teachers so that astronomy doesn't die out as a school subject in Portugal. As always, we enjoyed talking to the local people and seeing how enthusiastic they are about their work.
After our planetarium visit, we strolled around the city a bit.
In the evening we made pumpkin soup with Vijay and watched "Coco" with him and his cat Fifi. After all, día de los muertos is soon in Mexico :)
Tuesday (01.11.) we continued with the weather we expected from Portugal: Sunshine! Getting out of Porto was again a challenge of a special kind, but as you can see from the map, we have mastered it successfully!
Along the coastline we discovered an acceptable bike path, which sometimes just ended but was by and large passable. Since there werent many planetaria in Spaim, we increased on Tuesday somewhat our quota and visited the second planetarium in two days. In Espinho we stood however first a whole time in front of a closed door... When we explained our request to a woman, she put us off with "one moment please" and was never seen again. When another gentleman came out, to whom we explained our request again, we only heard "one minute please". But also he never returned... Apparently, the Portuguese have a slightly different sense of time... We almost decided to leave again, when a super nice gentleman with "NASA" Tshirt arrived and addressed me. We understood each other super fast. A real planetarian! Enthusiastically he showed me their system and their dome! I was even allowed to look at a programmed sequence of him! In the past, they even offered school groups to spend the night in the dome and fall asleep under the stars. However, the planetarium itself is part of a media center in which there is also a cinema and various exhibition rooms. When the next show was about to start, we also drove on.
So we havent made really many kilometers today, but that just happens from time to time! We were rewarded with one of our coolest wild camping sites of our trip: 10m above the water with ocean view. No 5-star hotel can beat this experience!
On Wednesday (02.11.) we were woken up by the sound of the waves - an incredibly beautiful morning that we would not forget so quickly! As we drove back towards the road, we could admire the somewhat more challenging path to our sleeping place also in the light - you just get nothing for free in life!
Today the drivers didn't show their worst side, but we still wouldn't recommend Portugal as a cycling country... In between, we actually also hit an acceptable bike path along a river and found an unusual species waddling in the wetlands - flamingos! They winter in the wetlands of Portugal and get on the nerves of the local gray herons a bit.
We chose our sleeping place today along a new-old road that is being resurfaced and is advertised online as EuroVelo1. The advantage was that it was still closed to cars, which means we were sure that no one will bother us.
We woke up the next morning - Thursday (03.11.) - by the light drip of rain on our tent. How that looks like when you soon have to get out into the wet, you can see in the following picture.
The first kilometers we covered in mystical fog and rain on a deserted, straight road in a very monotonous landscape.
At some point we were so soaking wet that we looked for alternative sleeping arrangements to our tent and wrote to a person about Warmshowers in Figuera da Foz and waited for their reply in a small café. There I got to try some pretty cheap and good Portuguese coffee. The owner found us and our vehicle funny and introduced us to a German expatriate with whom we had a short chat.
When the rain had cleared up a bit, we took advantage of the rain break and continued towards Figuera da Foz, where we had received a commitment in the meantime. Since the person herself was not at home, she organized someone who could let us into the courtyard. In the meantime we sat down in the café of the Contintente (Portuguese supermarket) where we were served an (extra!) hot cocoa :-) Arriving at our WS host, we took a hot shower and hung up all our clothes to dry. After preparing oven vegetables and cuddling the cats, we snuggled together in the hammock - a premiere on this trip!
Friday (04.11.) then started with much better weather. At least for the time being. While we were greeted on the farm by our Warmshowershost with sunshine, down on the beach an increasingly dense fog awaited us. As you know Tilman, we then of course took the time to shoot a few epic photos of seagulls in the fog.
After we got on a somewhat stressful Portuguese road again, the sun came out as well as the first Eurovelo1 signs for several hundred kilometers! We were really excited when we saw five of them, which even led us to a - for Portuguese conditions - very good bike path.
These we followed for a long time through a forest, straight ahead, a bit up and down... A few kilometers later - with this road quality they flew by - we decided to take a short break at a beach and for once enjoy the beautiful weather, what Portugal has to offer!
However, we still had one goal today and so we swung back on the bikes and drove to Nazare. There should be supposedly the highest waves in Europe to find! At times, these can be up to 10 meters high! On this day they were not quite as high but no less impressive. Furthermore, there should be a planetarium hidden in the city library of Nazare (at least according to the database). And indeed, with some convincing we were able to find someone who unlocked the door to the small planetarium for us. Unfortunately, it has not been in use for a long time, as the very interesting (and unusual) projector is not working at the moment. Nevertheless, we were very grateful that we were allowed to have a little look inside :-)
So slowly the sun sank against horizon. In front of the supermarket we met two Germans on a (normal) tandem, who started from Bremerhaven and whose preliminary destination is Portugal(yourbackismybestview). After a short chat, we went in search of a suitable wild camping spot, and even drove up a pretty brutal incline to do so! As so often, we were rewarded and found a nice hidden and flat place with super views of the city.
And lest we leave it unmentioned, we also had a bit of a dilemma with the front seat that day, where the bars are starting to say goodbye.... We have it temporarily fixed, but are planning a more stable solution with Tilman's brother - steel struts. Because a lesson we learned during the bike tour: no aluminum on touring bikes!
And so you can better appreciate the quality of portuguese bike lanes, here is a quick collection:
Finally, there is a little star lesson to probably one of the most beautiful constellations in the winter sky: Orion. Many of you know and surely recognize it in the starry sky. In principle the constellation looks like a big hourglass in the starry sky. In the center is the prominent "Belt of Orion" near which is also the famous Orion Nebula.
There are several stories about this constellation but for now I'll tell you my favorite. Orion was a famous warrior in ancient Greece who bragged everywhere about his strength and skill. This got on the nerves of Gaia, the goddess of the earth, and she sent the scorpion to sting Orion. The latter found his prey sitting by a warm fire and crept up in the darkness. He stung and Orion suffered agony. Fortunately, he had a friend who was well versed in the healing arts and saved Orion's life. Since then, Orion and Scorpio have been at exactly opposite points in the starry sky. When Orion sets, Scorpio rises and vice versa. So they don't get in each other's way anymore. By the way, there is another story about this from the Arabian saga world. If you are interested in it, I recommend to visit either a show of Feras in the planetarium in Potsdam or to watch the following Youtube video.
Till then we'll send you a lot of portuguese sun!