Ola from Lisbon. I've finally caved in and paid the €5 for wi-fi access, thus this long overdue update. Lisbon rocks. We arrived yesterday and spent today looking around the city. Despite yet more mad Portuguese drivers, the city is fantastic. A great mix of people, wonderful buildings, a proper city feel - I think it's my favourite place so far and I could probably live here.

A quick update on where we've been since my last entry below. We spent a night in Coimbra - it turned out to be the week of graduation celebrations, with pissed up students all over the city all night. It was ace.

From there we visited some roman ruins before staying in our best campsite yet. Once again, it was nowhere near the place it *claimed* to be located in, but my righteous anger was thwarted when the guy turned out to be too lovely to be snidey to and the campsite was in a beautiful woodland with chickens roaming free and a little town with one bar up the road.

Then it was on to Nazare - although, this was via a fuck-off detour once again caused by motorways. Damn you, motorists and roadbuilders, is it too much to ask that we have a couple of roads that cycles can go on?? We turned up in Leiria, having carefully planned our route (well, Neil had) only to discover that we couldn't take a road south and had to go out to the coast to camp for a couple of nights instead of going straight down. However, Nazare was typically seasidey and quite nice. And it had a funicular railway, so there's that. From there, we took a bus to Alcobaca and Batalha to see the cathedrals there - two of the top sites in Portugal, apparently. They were both magnificent - the former better inside, the latter more impressive out.

However, both were trumped for eerie beauty by Obidos, which we visited on our way to Peniche. A walled city which is perfectly preserved, capped by a castle and baking hot in the Portuguese sun. We wandered around for a couple of hours before Neil died from the heat and had to be revived. What to say about Peniche? The campsite was just over €3 a night - about it really. In complete opposition to all normal (and I use that word under advisement) Portuguese practice, everything shut at 5pm, including the prison that I was hoping to visit - it's a museum now, disappointingly.

Our stay in Peniche was followed by what shall hence forth be known as Fuck Off Thursday - single worst day for shitty stupid stuff so far. Started with a flat tyre due to a split valve before we even left the campsite - mine, of course. Then, when we had got about 17km up the road, we discovered that I did not have Solio! This required a 35km-odd round trip by Angela back to the campsite, where Solio was happily sitting on the ground soaking up the sun. After this, we toddled on to Santa Cruz where the day was capped with the discovery that I had managed to lose my only long sleeve shirt. Nice. We met a very groovy Portuguese man in Santa Cruz, however, who cheered me up no end by chatting to us for ages and telling us all about the area. The campsite was close to town the coast was beautiful and it turned out to be less evil a day than it had so far been shaping up.

I've posted a bunch of pictures on Flickr, but I don't have time to put them up on the blog at the moment, as I've only paid for an hour of internet and I'm almost out of time. Interesting side note - it is outrageously expensive to call Australia from Portugal. I get 9 minutes for €5 if I buy a phone card!

A further update soon is promised, but I must post this now in case I encounter any problems. Plus, there is Lisbon nightlife to be tasted, you know. Apologies in advance if there are any errors in this - I will re-read when I have time and correct, so don't bother emailing, you bastards.


4 May 2007
We’re still in Portugal, which is probably why I haven’t yet posted this: still no wi-fi access. I have bought a CD-RW which I will transfer the blog entries to and visit some kind of ‘internet café’ – how primitive. Tonight we’re in Figueira de Foz – we’ve seen sod all of it, to be honest, because Neil somehow misjudged the distance from Avierro to here by about 20km (under, it goes without saying) and we were absolutely knackered when we arrived. Set up camp, went to the supermarket for supplies, ate noodles and now we are chilling for the evening. Seems a nice enough spot, although the campsite charges for hot showers, which seems a bit rugged.

Spent a couple of nights just outside Avierro and took the ferry over the first day for a look around and today to head on south. Treated ourselves to a proper lunch out yesterday, and what a delightful treat it was. Superb seafood – I had whole grilled fish and Neil had squid and prawns grilled ‘on the spit’, as they say (in what is no doubt an appalling mis-translation on the menu). Neil is struggling a little in the seafood department because he won’t eat whole fishes, and apparently it has nothing to do with the eyes watching him. Made a nice change from cheese sandwiches, which is the most common lunch dish we have.

Not today, mind you – today we bought half a kilo of strawberries for 90c (euro) from a roadside stand. These were the ‘middle’ quality and were ridiculously delicious. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t opt for the luxury €2.25 a kilo grade or we would have exploded with strawberry goodness. Went to the porcelain factory and museum at Vista Alegre in the morning, which you’ll just have to take my word was very interesting – oldest porcelain maker in Portugal, you know, and world-renowned. A small but exquisite porcelain gift will be winging its way to Mum by the time this is posted – in fact, in an awesome stroke of good fortune, it may even appear to have been bought for mother’s day (if that is this Sunday in Australia, as it is in Portugal, and not about two months ago as it was in the UK).

We’ve set our old incredibly crap lamp free and invested in a new one, which is much brighter, lighter, more compact and sticks to the tent using magnets. Cool. Sunshine is still a bit intermittent to charge all our solar rechargers, but we’re just about getting by. I’m really loving Portugal, despite the weather being less upbeat than expected. The people are excellent, friendly and helpful everywhere we go. If I could just take their cars away, it would be a very pleasant country indeed – but more of that another time no doubt.

Tomorrow we head inland to Coimbra, and my fingers will be firmly crossed for a reasonably flat run – it’s not that far, but today was pretty taxing so a slightly gentler ride would be appreciated. Must conserve iBook battery. More soon.

1 May 2007
Wi-fi access so far in Portugal hasn’t been a patch on that in Spain, as you’ve probably guessed. All over Spain there were unsecured networks, free in bars and hotels, accessible all over the place. You just had to find a decent hotel with a square or a bar/café nearby and Bob’s your uncle. In Portugal, on the other hand, there appears to be a wi-fi service that has done deals with major chains of hotels, etc, and charges you exorbitant rates (€5 an hour) for access in lots of different places. Still, we’ll go hover outside some swanky hotel and see if we can’t hijack somebody else’s service.

Another valuable lesson has been learned. Despite my reservations, we decided to make a run for it straight to Porto on Saturday. About 65kms of great cycling was followed by 5kms of steep hills on really busy roads and then the usual disaster of trying to get into a major city – the road we have been using all day magically turns into a motorway (which bikes can’t go on) and we are left with no indication of how to proceed. Neil managed to ‘overlook’ a map in the book that would have helped us get in and we ended up spending another 15kms finally getting to a pension in the city. The new rule is that we stay no more than 40kms from any major city we intend to visit (I might add that this happens every fucking time – no-one gives a shit how you get into a city if you are not in a car). Admittedly, I already knew we should do this but backed down for some strange reason when Neil seemed all enthused for doing the journey in one day. Never again.

Anyhoo, Porto was wonderful – what a beautiful city. On first arrival, particularly on bikes, one is struck by the ridiculously hilly setting, but once you’ve got rid of your bikes, had a shower and a beer, it becomes apparent that this is actually a wonderful thing and adds to the charm of the place. Drank some great port, did some sightseeing, relaxed by the side of the river – it was all good and I highly recommend the place to anyone. It does seem very spread out, though, with little bars and restaurants scattered all over the place. Also, we struggled to find much in the way of nightlife although I’m willing to believe we just didn’t know where to look. According to one guide map, ‘young people’ head out to Foz for bars and clubs, but as I’d already seen that area on the way in, I couldn’t be asked to go out there exploring. On our second night we did some port tasting and had dinner on the wine cellar side of the river – it chucked it down rain on the way home, but fortunately we were quite pissed by then and didn’t really care. Bizarrely, we ran into the slightly creepy Germans who we had spent the night chatting with at the last campsite. What are the chances?

Today we are just around the coast in Madalena – camping for two nights so that we can wash and dry some clothes. The weather is terrible – it rained all night and most of this morning and the wind is really cold. If you can stay in the sun and out of the wind, it is okay, but I suspect we will probably be facing constant showers on and off for most of the day. Add to that the fact that we are out of gas for cooking and you’ve got a pretty sorry looking camp night two ahead. Still, tomorrow we’ll be off again and heading down towards Aveiro, hopefully along a nice flat coast road. Salad and cheese for dinner will be fine, but absence of hot drinks for 24 hours could cause serious problems. I’ll probably just eat coffee or something. Maybe if I stand a pot of water in what little sun there is for long enough…

27 April 20007
Bloody hell – was that two days ago? We’re in Portugal! Country 2 – although Spain is only in temporary abeyance, of course. Pontevedra to Samil (Vigo) was a bit of a bloody nightmare, to be honest. We made the 1,000km mark, it pissed down rain and was freezing cold. We ended up in Vigo around lunch time, the entire place was packed full of cunts driving like maniacs (you might think something like that would be difficult to distinguish, but then you’ve clearly never seen the drivers of Vigo). We had lunch in Vigo. Vigo sucks. I have absolutely no basis for saying that except that I had a really shit couple of hours getting into and out of the place. And they drive like cunts. It is probably a really nice city (there were certain indications of this that I was able to ignore through the caked on filth from the road, constant rain and freezing wind, and the drivers). However, in all good faith I cannot recommend it.

Samil, on the other hand, is ace. Basically, go straight through Vigo (trying not to get killed by the drivers – I think we’re all clear on what they are by now) as quickly as possible and get to the beach on the other side. When we arrived the sun came out, birds sang in the trees, the flowers opened – it was all a bit Disney, frankly. But hey, when you’ve been rained on and sprayed in shit by trucks for the last 50km, you’re genuinely susceptible to that crap, you know? Such a nice campsite man, as well. Beautiful beach but a depressingly large McDonalds – still haven’t seen that many of them, to be honest, so when you encounter one in anything other than a city centre, the resentment surfaces.
Pleasant walk along the beach followed by a couple of beers, camp dinner (I believe that night was packet soup with added fresh vegetables – mmmmm, delicious), then off to find a pub that had the champions league semi on. Nothing on the front appeared to be showing it, so we struck off a small country lane that alleged the presence of a bar. We were despairing when finally it appeared on the side road, the only warning a car park with no cars in. Turned out to be a fabulous, old-men-in-jumpers pub (I will detail my old men in jumpers approach to Spanish bars at a later point when time permits). Watched the football accompanied by many wonderful snacks and Spanish beer and then staggered back down the hill to the tent.

The cycling has only got better since we broke the 1,000km mark – from Samil to A Guarda was fantastic – all rolling coasts and gentle hills. The road hugged the coastline giving magnificent views of hills, rocks and proper, proper sea. Wind behind us all the way, lunch on a headland with rock pools full of crabs and shellfish, the landscape littered with lighthouses and seaside convents. Then we reached A Guarda, which seemed so beautiful, nestled between two mountains looking across to Portugal. Sadly, things came a bit unstuck thanks to misinformation in the guidebook – Officino de Tourismo Galicia, I’m looking at you. Basically, the campsite claimed to be open all year round and it was shut. The only other campsite nearby – about 5kms, allegedly – turned out to be imaginary, as far as we could tell. We certainly never found the fucker. What we did find, however, was a windy mountainous road that ran straight into a vicious headwind. Once again, the hardest cycling of the day was actually done trying to find somewhere to stay.

I was all for just camping next to the campsite (why should anyone in the town benefit financially from the misinformation provided by the tourist info office, I ask??) but Neil wanted to get a pension for the night. Still a bit soft, when it comes to camping I’m afraid. A Guarda itself was okay – there is a watchtower on the hill in the town (which was completely impregnable, so obviously very effective as a watchtower, though slightly less so as a tourist attraction). The main attractions are the ruins of a roman village and a cathedral which are both up a mountain overlooking Spain and Portugal. Very cool and we had the whole place to ourselves to wander around.

With nary a glance from anyone at something so flimsy as a passport, we took the ferry from A Guarda to Caminha – for the outrageous fee of 75cents each with bicicletas, I might add – and we’re in Portugal. Instantly, the drivers make those of Vigo seem like advertisements for road safety. I sense a public service announcement looming on these blog pages in the coming weeks. Still, the road itself was wonderfully flat, ridiculously bumpy and had a wide hard shoulder which you could ride on with lots of space if little comfort. Our first stop was in Viana do Castelo, which is a lot bigger than I expected and also quite impressive. Double thumbs up for an excellent tourist office with a great tourist office dude – fluent English, really friendly and offered some suggestions on things we might like to do – a great bookshop with a solid collection of English-Portuguese phrase books and dictionaries and even (gasp) an English language guide to Portugal, and the cheapest beer we’ve had so far.

Our campsite is actually out on a headland, separated from the town by a working port so we had to take the ferry home from town after sightseeing - €1.50 each with bicicletas, twice the price of country-hopping, for the love of Thor. V cheap campsite, though, so we made some of the excessive fare price back that way. Took the bicicletas up to the massive Templo de St Luzia via a funicular railway and then cycled back down the hill. Sadly, what should have been a fun freewheel was somewhat marred by cobbled-bastarding-roads, as they are commonly known. Neil gets a particularl pain-face on when we have to ride over them for extended periods of time – I’ll try to get a picture. Overall, my first Portuguese stop has been very pleasant. Sat around chatting at the campsite with an only slightly creepy German couple (very nice really, just the references to frolics with Portuguese ‘young people’ that made me watch for hammer-shaped shadows on the tent during the night). The local people generally seem really nice and look at me only slightly askance when I start speaking poor Spanish, swear loudly in English when I realise I’m using the wrong language, then start spouting random vaguely Portuguese-sounding words – as I have done in most transactions or conversations of any kind so far. It’s morning now (Saturday 28 April) and we’re trying to decide whether to make a run straight through to Porto or camp for a couple of nights before we get there. We spend two nights in each decent-sized city and now (through painful experience) try to avoid our full day in town falling on a Monday when everything of interest is shut. It’s not that far, but we also look like filthy Dickensian urchins, smeared from head to foot, and on all our clothes, with soot-like black grease so a camping stop would give us an opportunity to clean up somewhat. Oh well, you get used to the grease after a while…


25 April 2007
RAIN. Six kilometres from the 1000km mark, two days from the Portuguese border and it is absolutely pissing it down. Bastard. We’re holed up in a room in Pontevedra watching the rain come down but in roughly an hour we’ll be packing our bikes and getting nice and drippy. Fortunately, it’s only 30km to Vigo and our next campsite, so hopefully we can make the journey without going mad. Yes, I did say campsite. Won’t that be fun.

Nice town Pontevedra, although its charm is somewhat dampened by the aforementioned rain. Lots of historic buildings and a cathedral built in the shape of a clam, roughly. We had a delicious dinner last night and a bit too much to drink, which should both prepare us nicely for today’s cycling.

Public service notice: cats and hedgehogs of Spain – stay away from the roads. It is * not * safe. You are dying in your droves. I know the other side of the road can seem exotic, romantic even, but it’s not worth it. I implore you to believe me – the grass is * not* greener on the other side. The best, most friendly, exciting and fulfilling cat/hedgehog environment is on the side of the road * you are already on*. Crossing kills: stay where you are.

The most disappointing word in Spanish so far is ferreteria. Rather than a place where ferrets run wild, filled with tiny ferret-sized furnishings and fittings and equipped with many many brightly coloured pipes, wheels and other fun things for ferrets to do, it is in fact a hardware shop. Poor form.