March 29, 2023

Just another 137 kilometers or 85 miles from Sevilla, near the border with Portugal, is Isla Cristina. This small island is a popular tourist destination for Spanish tourists, and in particular those from Sevilla, who come here during July and August for the beautiful beaches.

We arrived at the end of March, long before tourist season begins, and it showed. We stayed in a campground that was primarily taken up by full-time trailers, or caravans, that are parked here year-round but used only for a short time each year. There were perhaps a dozen or so motorhomes, mostly from Germany and Netherlands, that were occupied. Even though it was off-season, the primitive camping spot that we were given was still $27 a night. On the positive side, the facilities were clean, and there was a small cafe that served breakfast on site.

Our home for a couple of nights in Isla Cristina.

We were just across the road from the beach, and a pathway led from the campground to the beach, which then turned into a boardwalk which led about a half mile to the town of Isla Cristina. We decided to walk to the edge of town for dinner at a restaurant that showed up on Google Maps. When we arrived, there was a private party going on there, and the other cafes across the parking lot were closed. So we decided to continue down the boardwalk into town.

This won’t be the last time I say this, but this is the perfect time of year for someone like me to visit Spain and Portugal. The weather is great (not too hot), and the crowds — outside of places like Sevilla — amount to a family or two.

It quickly became apparent that this is indeed a tourist town, and it was indeed not tourist season. This is a positive for me, as (have I mentioned this?) I hate crowds, and having the entire boardwalk and beach to ourselves was wonderful. However, it’s also a severe drawback when trying to find something to eat. The town looked deserted. There were a few locals milling about, but nearly every business was closed. We eventually discovered Telepizza, which is sort of Spain’s answer to Domino’s, but with a few tables so you can actually dine in. The normal Telepizza customer gets their pizza delivered by a guy on a red scooter. Not us.

We found this one bar that was open on the main street of town, and had a drink while waiting for Telepizza to open at 7:30pm.

Telepizza. Sort of a Domino’s/Pizza Hut/Little Caesar’s kind of pizza delivery, but with a few tables for people like us.

The pizza turned out to be quite good, and the walk back to the campground at sunset was great.

Sunset from the boardwalk. There are vacation homes and hotels all along here, and not a single one of them open or occupied.

We slept well, had a nice “tostada” (toast) breakfast in the morning with cafe con leche, and made our way to Portugal.

March 30, 2023

Portugal marks fifty five countries for me, and thirty six that Diana has been along for the ride. That leaves a lot of the world still remaining, but hey, If Not Now, Soon?

We only had eighty miles to ride today to get to our house sit outside of Silves, Portugal. I’m not a fan of riding toll roads or motorways any more than we have to, and in much of Portugal the toll roads don’t have toll booths; you have to pay electronically. Either you have a transponder, or they debit the account you create online each time the toll reader scans your license plate. This all sounded like more hassle than we needed, so we chose to take the MUCH more scenic backroads to Silves.

It’s easy for an American, and especially for someone from a state as large as Texas, to forget how relatively small countries can be here. This was the first time I realized how close together many of the world championship Formula One and Moto GP race tracks are. For example, it’s only about 200 miles from the Circuito de Jerez in Spain to the Algarve International Circuit in Portimao, Portugal. That would be like having a world championship motorsports race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, and another in Dallas or Houston. Not only that, but there are multiple wold-class tracks just in Spain and Italy alone. America struggles just to keep one round in a huge country.

The Algarve is a popular tourist destination, and also a large attraction for ex-pats. Over the years, many Brits and Americans have moved here. Portugal has made it easy for foreigners to buy land and obtain residency (that is changing as I write this, as the floodgates seem to have been opened a bit too wide as far as locals are concerned). The beaches and the weather here are prime attractions, as is the lower cost of living.

As usual, we aren’t here for the beaches, and in fact we are skipping the towns most well-known to tourists in the Algarve. Instead, we are riding through beautiful, twisty, mountain roads, past incredibly fragrant orange groves as the blooms erupt this time of year, and through large stands of eucalyptus trees. The road and the area reminds me of riding through Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s, before so much of the land was bulldozed and turned into sprawling subdivisions. Back then, you could ride a dirt bike almost anywhere outside of town, and go for miles through the hills of Southern California. In places, it feels like riding through Griffith Park, the landscape and the trees looking more like there than any other place I’ve been as of yet.

Our destination for the next five days is just outside of Silves, a town with a population of about 11,000 people that was once the ancient capitol of the Algarve.

Silves Castle. Originally built as a Lusitanian Castro around 201 BC, between the 8th and 13th centuries, the Moors occupied and expanded it. Today, the restored outer walls remain, but little of the interior exists.

The Silves Cathedral, built in the second half of the 13th century.

The cathedral and castle are lit at night, providing an imposing sight over the city of Silves.

Our home for the next five days is this one hundred acre estate in the countryside. We’ll be caring for these three great dogs, along with a bunch of chickens, some doves, and of course the home.

Each day we take the dogs walking on the trails around this large property. Good exercise for all and great views.

Gum rock-rose.

Lotus Berthelotti. From a distance these flowers look like tiny flames.

These loquat fruit have a sweet taste when picked at the right time.

Home made breakfast, including eggs from the chickens, and fresh picked oranges and tomatoes.

During our stay outside Silves, we received a message from Paula, the niece of my good friend Tom. She and her husband, who are from Louisville, Kentucky, were in Albufeira, about forty minutes away. We made plans to meet for lunch.

Paula and her husband Anoosh (on the left) along with Anoosh’s niece and her husband, met us for lunch in Albufeira. We had never met before today, although it felt like we already knew each other fairly well through Tom. We had a great time in the couple of hours we spent together, and are already discussing plans to go see them again when we’re back in the States.

April 4, 2023

On the way towards Evora this morning, we rode past another motorcyclist on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It looked like he may be in need of help, so I turned around to go back and check on him.

He was indeed broken down. He was from France, and had been traveling this part of Europe for three years, essentially on no money. He was riding what looked to be a mid-2000s Kawasaki 500 cruiser. As I pulled up behind him, he walked up and asked, “Do you speak any English?”

“English is pretty much ALL I speak”, I replied with a grin.

“Dude!” Not exactly the French response I was expecting.

It turns out his throttle cable had snapped at the lower connector to the carburetors, and he had no spare cable, few tools, and little mechanical experience, as best as I could tell. After some discussion, we decided to try to use the return cable in place of the “pull” cable to get him down the road to a place that might be able to repair or replace the cable for him. However, upon opening the throttle housing, we quickly saw that the return cable was broken off at the throttle tube, and had apparently been in that condition since he purchased the bike, as the end of the cable was nowhere to be found.

Not my favorite place to disassemble a motorcycle, but as Judith would say, “It could be worse…it could be snowing.”

This left him with few options, and without any money for a tow truck. We had a lengthy discussion about how he could move forward, and after exhausting other options, we agreed that I would install the remnants of the return cable on the carburetors, routing the other end near the throttle. I then attached a small pair of Vise Grips to the frayed end of the cable, creating a handle that he could pull to open the throttle. After testing it a few times to ensure it returned properly on its’ own, we left him to (hopefully slowly) maneuver to somewhere that could do more for him.

It wasn’t the best solution (two new cables magically appearing would have been nice), but it still felt like the right thing to do, and a fresh injection of karma that we might need to call on some day.

An hour or so later, I stood and read a sonnet written by Antonio Ascensão Teles, the parish priest of the village of São Pedro from 1845 to 1848. The poem was written to encourage people to reflect on their existence in general, but it also struck me as specifically appropriate to those who travel as we do. In reflecting on our travels, it’s more important to us to experience the people and the cultures than the tourist stops along the way, and to reflect on why we travel (ironic, since I was reading this in what had become a tourist stop). I realize that seems a bit odd, considering how much I’ve reiterated that I’m more of a hermit than most and dislike crowds, but I’ve come to enjoy the company of very small crowds, especially those who may not even share a common language but share a common curiosity about people from distant lands. The more we’ve traveled, the more we’ve learned about people from all over the world. Mostly, we’ve learned that regardless of what you may read or hear in the media, people everywhere tend to be the same. They want to be happy and to live their lives with as little stress as possible (hint: if that doesn’t describe you, you may want to reconsider your priorities). To that end, we’ve seen that those with the least — possessions, money, obligations, stress — tend to be the happiest, and they also tend to be the people who are the first to offer to do anything for you, including offering meals, places to stay, and assistance. They may have very little, but they are happy to share whatever they have.

So, having reflected on our travels, here’s the sonnet I read, translated from Portuguese to English:

Where are you going in such a hurry, traveller?
Stop…do not proceed any further;
You have no greater concern,
Than this one: that on which you focus your sight.

If by chance you glance at this place,
Stop…For the sake of your journey,
The more you pause, the more you will progress.

Father Teles’ sonnet hangs in the Capela dos Ossos in the Church of St. Francis in Evora, Portugal. When read while standing where it hangs, in the Chapel of Bones, it has an even stronger message.

We continued to ponder that while heading further north to Tomar, the seat of the Knights Templar. The castle in Tomar was built beginning in 1118, and the Convent of Christ was constructed through the end of the 12th century. The Templar Order was dissolved in the early 1300s and in 1319 the Order of Christ was established. This massive monastery is still undergoing restoration.

The sidewalks in the city leading toward the Convent of Christ have the Knights Templar cross inlaid in them.

Having done our best at a good deed for the day, and pondering the fate of travelers like us, we continued on towards Arouca, where we were looking forward to a bit of present-day experience and adventure.

April 6, 2023

We based in Arouca for two nights so that we could leave all of our “stuff” behind for a day while doing some hiking. Arouca is a beautiful town of around 20,000 people in a valley, surrounded by hills mostly covered in pines. As usual, we took the “back road” into Arouca, and the twisty, lightly-traveled road itself made for a beautiful and fun introduction to Arouca. Time Magazine called Arouca “One of the World’s Greatest Places” in 2021. The town has a nice, relaxing feel to it, although to be fair we were there before tourist season starts, which I’m sure creates a whole different level of chaos.

Besides the town itself, there are two main attractions in the area: The first is the Arouca Geopark, which has a 5.1 mile long mostly elevated, plank-covered walkway along the Paiva River. Called the Passadiços de Paiva, the walkway includes a climb of over five hundred steps up (and then down again).

These stairs (over 500 of them) are at the south end of the walkway. Once you’ve climbed them, it’s pretty much all downhill for the next four and a half miles, following the Paiva River.

The downhill side of the steps.

The Paiva River is a popular rafting and kayaking spot.

Once you reach the end of the five mile walk, there are taxis and shuttle vehicles that will take you back to the start.

Within the Arouca Geopark is the second and newest attraction, called 516 Arouca. The “516” refers to 516 meters (1693 feet), the length of the bridge, which when it opened in April 2021 was the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world.

The bridge is 175 meters, or 574 feet, above the Paiva River.

Yep. Crossed it. Yep, it bounces when people walk on it.

In the US, if you built a multi-million dollar bridge as a tourist attraction, you’d build a Disney-like theme park in front of it, with rides, souvenir shops, restaurants, maybe a big parking lot with a tram that takes you to the front gate… Here, it’s a twenty minute walk down this 1.5 meter wide, mostly unmarked stone and dirt path to get to the bridge. Once you’re there, it’s just the bridge; no souvenir t-shirts, no “516” souvenir $20 plastic cups with watered down soft drinks. In fact, there are only restrooms on one end of the bridge. It may be a tourist attraction, but it’s surrounded by authenticity.

We enjoyed our relaxing stay in Arouca, and we again took the back way out of Arouca towards our next destination: The Douro Valley.

April 7-9, 2023

Before ever leaving home, back in 2020, I had already made a list of my “must-see” places in Portugal. They included the Algarve, but not the beaches and beach towns that most people long for; Nazare, particularly in November, for the big wave surfing, and Lisbon, because, well, in all honesty, there was a place to store the bike there if needed while we flew home. Aside from that, I didn’t have a real “need” to see Lisbon. However, always at the top of my list for Portugal was the Douro Valley.

I’m not a wine snob; in fact, I probably know less than 99% of people about wines. I rarely even drink wine. But I’ve always been attracted to vineyards. The growing process, and the look and feel of a vineyard, have always given me a peaceful feeling. I felt the same way when I stepped into my grove of six hundred navel orange trees in southern California. There’s just something about helping nature to produce a beautiful product, and the feeling of walking among it, that speaks to me.

So even though the home of Port wine was calling me, it was the vineyards more than the wineries that I wanted to see. And the Douro River Valley teased me with that promise.

More than a year ago, while doing a little research on the area, I stumbled on an AirBnB that also spoke to me. It was a converted old mill house, on the edge of the Varosa River upstream from the Douro. There was nothing nearby. Surrounded by vineyards, olive groves and open land, it looked like a peaceful little house in a peaceful spead of countryside. I made a note to book it when we finally got to Portugal.

One thing that happens when you travel for extended periods is that you lose track of what day it is, and what date it is. So when we arrived in Vila Real, north of the Douro River, on Good Friday, nearly everything in town was closed. We walked the town, and while walking past the one restaurant that appeared to be open, a gentleman who was likely the owner ran out the door and asked if we wanted to eat dinner. He spoke only Portuguese, and when he realized that we spoke only English, he asked us to wait while he ran back inside and brought a waiter back out who spoke English. It was the only place in town that we could find that was open, and they were really wanting our business. So we said “Okay”, and they seated us at a table and brought us a menu. The first thing I saw was the prices, starting at over $100. I was about to get up, when I realized that I was looking at assorted seafood plates for large groups. The next page had individual items, and was closer to our budget. I ended up ordering a seafood tagliatelle, which turned out to be one of, if not the best meal I’ve had in the past two months.

If you enjoy seafood, this was a delicious meal, for about $14.

Diana ordered a traditional Portuguese “sandwich”, a Francesinha, which translates to “Little French”, and is based on the croque monsieur. It’s made with bread, ham, steak, linguica sausage and covered in melted cheese, then topped with a fried egg and covered in a spiced tomato and beer sauce.

Not the kind of sandwich you eat with your bare hands.

And as usual, we ordered a bottle of wine with dinner, which with the exorbitant restaurant markup, came to about $8 for the bottle.

We spent the night at the Mira Corgo hotel in Vila Real (underground parking garage and reasonably priced, including breakfast buffet), and started our loop of the Douro Valley and points beyond the next morning.

Vineyards as far as the eye can see.

There are a lot of day cruises up the Douro River. Many stop at a couple of wineries for tastings, and for lunch at Pinhao. They have to go through this lock on the river.

Considerably smaller than the Panama Canal locks, but same concept.

Up to the height of the eastern side of the river, and on to Pinhao.

We’re not using a GPS for navigation this year; instead I’m using an old iPhone 8 and the maps.me app, and it has worked great, up until now. But for some reason this morning, I made a monumental error and didn’t realize it. I had punched in multiple waypoints to form a one hundred mile loop. After watching the boat come through the lock, we continued east to Pinhao, but there were so many tourists there on this holiday weekend that we turned around and headed back the way we came to a small roadside restaurant we had passed earlier. Finding it full as well, we got back on the bike, and that’s when I noticed the app was telling me to go nearly all the way back to the dam/lock, and take a small road south. I wasn’t sure how I had missed this turn, but I did as instructed, and we rode another ten miles back and turned up a tiny side road. After two miles, it came to a dead end at St. Eufemia Vineyards, which I then remembered that I had plotted into the phone as our first stop. The vineyard was closed (Easter weekend), and that’s when I realized that, unlike the Garmin GPS, or Google Maps, maps.me does not “assume” that you want to skip a waypoint and reconfigures your route. No, it insists that you go all the way back to the point you put in, before allowing you to continue on. So now we were again heading east, past the same roadside restaurant, past Pinhao and finally south on a new road.

The lushness of the Douro Valley vineyards fades quickly once you climb out of the valley, and the terrain changed to plains, then occasional forest, as we continued south then west again.

At a gas station near the direct center of absolutely nowhere, we stopped, not for gas, but for something to drink and an ice cream. While sitting at a small table enjoying our break, a woman in an Audi sedan pulled in. I thought I smelled burning brakes, but then noticed the smoke coming from the grille of the car. She got out and walked over to the couple sitting at the next table, which was also the cashier of the gas station and her husband/boyfriend, I think. They spoke briefly in Portuguese. The man never bothered to take his feet off of the chair across from him, and made it obvious that he had no intention of getting up to look at her car. Eventually, he relented and told her to pull the car around to the side of the building. As she started the car again, black smoke belched from the tailpipe, and the transmission made a terrible sound while the engine rpms increased but the car resisted forward movement. Eventually there was a loud “BANG!”, the car leapt forward, and died. She managed to get it restarted, and again it strained to move, but eventually crept toward the side of the building with a horrible metallic grinding noise. We quickly put our helmets on and got back on the road. Karma be damned, this was one ugly episode that was not going to end well for the woman or the Audi.

We continued past Vila da Ponte and on to Varzea de Abrunhais, to the little AirBnB that I was excited to finally meet.

The bridge over the Varosa River. This photo is taken from the path to our little house on the river.

Our own little vineyard. There are more vines, and olive trees, on the terraces above us that also belong to Quinta de Reciao, the owners of this little piece of heaven.

Looking back to the house from the vineyard. The vines won’t be full of green leaves and grapes for several months yet.

If you arrive on foot or by car, this little wagon awaits about two hundred yards up the path at the road. By motorcycle, with some care, we can ride right up to the door.

Across the river sits the remains of an old convent. This land once was covered in vineyards also, but now sits abandoned. If I was rich, I’d seriously entertain buying the land and moving in. It just needs a little fixing up.

We spent a couple of days just relaxing here. I had intended to do another loop through the Douro Valley, but the peacefulness of this place took over, and aside from a ride into Lamego for dinner one night, we never left. We enjoyed it so much that before we left, we booked another three night stay here coming up in a couple of weeks.

I can’t wait to return.