It’s been a while since my last post and seeing as the pace of life has slowed dramatically while we are spending a few days on the beautiful Greek island of Folegandros I thought I might catch up on a couple of blogs. Since my last post (The Kerala Express), we have visited Portugal, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy and Slovenia, so there is a bit to catch up on, but one of the highlights was a 5 day cycling trip in Portugal’s Algarve region.
We started our Portuguese leg with a few days in Porto. A very beautiful city that is well worth a visit if you find yourself in that part of the world.
From there Ali headed off to Alicante in Spain to catch up with a couple of girlfriends while I headed to Lisbon to catch up with with some old mates from the UK. When I say old, I don’t mean old, although they are all in their 50’s now, but I mean old in the sense that I have known them since we were 11 years old, or in fact in the case of one of them, since we were 5. As it happens it was when I caught up with these guys a couple of years ago in Budapest that the cycling tour seed was sown for me. Alex, who lives in Fremantle in WA, suggested that if we were going to go all that way to meet the lads in Budapest, then why not make a bit of a trip of it and cycle from Linz in Austria to Budapest in Hungary. So we did. Dan met us halfway, somewhere in Slovakia. Ten days and about 600ks, and despite never having done anything quite like it before I loved it, and now I am always keen to incorporate a bit of cycling into all my trips. So, I convinced Ali that we should do a bit of cycling in Portugal, and hopefully on one of the Greek islands too.
So after a bit of Googling I found a bike hire place in Olhão by the name of Sea Horse Bike Rentals where we could get a couple of touring bikes with panniers for the very reasonable price of €11 per day for 5 days. The fact that there is a train line running along the southern coast of Portugal also helped us decide to cycle here as we could cycle one way and get the train back. We also managed to find an apartment where we could store our luggage in Olhão so we could just take the bare minimum with us on the bikes. So, with all our ducks in a row, we headed down to the Algarve when Ali got back from Spain to saddle up and cycle off into the sunset.
Day 1.
After collecting the bikes in the morning we geared up and started heading west towards Albifuera, about 55ks away. It wasn’t the best start though as we were headed into a headwind, it started raining just after we left Olhão and apart from a couple of ks along the train line we were cycling along the main road for the first 15ks or so until we got past Faro airport. I think the tip here is get the train from Olhão to Faro to miss this bit out. From there the cycling got much better as we cycled some country lanes, plenty of golf courses and a couple of beautiful seaside towns with excellent beaches (too cold for swimming in April though). Unfortunately though Ali booked our accommodation for the night at the top of the highest hill just outside of Albifuera so the last part of the day was spent climbing a hill with burning thighs and a sore bum.
Day 2.
Awesome start to day 2. The sun was shining and it was a downhill run into town. Albifuera itself is a beautiful little Portuguese town with narrow cobbled streets leading down to a pretty good beach.
Living in South East Queensland I am pretty hard to impress when it comes to beaches as we do have a pretty high standard at home, but I have to say, some of the beaches that we saw in the Algarve were comparable to our Queensland beaches. Long stretches of golden sand, clear blue water and even a few dramatic cliffs here and there to set them off. Just a shame it was too cold for swimming.
The cycling for the first half of day was pretty good with more beaches, villages and country lanes until we got to Portimao where things went downhill a bit, or rather uphill a lot. The Eurovelo 8 cycle route and the Ecovia supposedly run through the Algarve, and this was the route that we were trying to follow. Unfortunately though, there are no Eurovelo signs at all, and the Ecovia ones are a bit sporadic to say the least. 
In short, we got lost coming out of Portimao, cycled up some hills that we probably didn’t need to and ended up cycling the last 12ks into Lagos along a main road. Ali wasn’t happy! But fortunately she got over it when we arrived in Lagos as it really is a stunning place.
We checked into our room, left the bikes and went walking through the town and around the headland to the lighthouse because after cycling 60ks we felt the need to do some more exercise….really! Anyway, I’m glad we did, as it really was stunning scenery. Loved Lagos. If I were to go back to the Algarve this is where I would hang out next time.
Day 3.
Our original intention had been to keep cycling west until we ran out of road at the most South Westerly point of Europe at Sagres, only another 30ks from Lagos. We checked the elevation though and discovered that although not that far it was very hilly and we had enough hills the day before. The train line also ends at Lagos so we would have had to cycle back again, so we decided on plan B, which was to get on a train and head east to Villa Real de San António on the Spanish border. A very wise decision as it turned out. We went for a ride around the town, the beach and the little harbour before getting the train, and while doing so the bolt holding my saddle on broke. 
Glad I wasn’t halfway to Sagres when that happened. So we got the train, checked in to our hotel in Villa Real, and then found a little hardware store that fortunately had the right size bolt to fix the saddle. That was easy, little did I know what was coming next!
We decided to head out of town up to the castle on the hill at Castro Marim, but unfortunately I got a puncture halfway there. No puncture repair kit and we had left the pump back at the hotel. No option but to walk back to town and find a bike shop. Easier said than done it would seem. Google wasn’t very helpful as a search showed the nearest bike shop was over the border in Spain about 20ks away. We asked a local on a bike and he gave us some directions to one in town, that turned out not to exist any more if it ever did. Ali cycled every street to see if she could find one, but no luck. I walked back to the hardware shop as the young guy in there spoke pretty good English to see if he knew of one. By this time it was getting quite late so we were thinking we might be out of luck. The guy in the hardware shop gave me directions to where he thought there was one, but that was also fruitless. I was about to give up when by chance I walked past what looked like a open garage door with a load of bikes inside. Turned out to be the town bike shop! No sign, no shopfront, just a load of bikes and an old lady who spoke zero English. With a bit of sign language and a mix of a few words of French, Spanish and Portuguese she explained that she couldn’t help me but knew a man who could. I tried to explain that I just needed a spanner, pump, patch and glue and I could help myself. She had none of the above (or probably didn’t know where to look). Anyway, armed with instructions to head toward the roundabout near the supermarket, turn right and look for the third door on the right off I went again. And there was my saviour fixing someone else’s bike just where the old lady said he would be. He spoke no English and I speak no Portuguese (other than hello, can I have a beer/coffee please and thank you), but a flat tire is pretty self explanatory and he had enough fingers on one hand to tell me how many Euros a new tube was going to cost me (the hole was too big and in a bad place for patching).
Day 4.
The sun was shining, the roads were flat, the tyres weren’t. This is how cycling should be. We cycled up to The castle at Castro Marim first which was pretty cool. No punctures this time either which was a bonus. We then cycled back along the river that forms the border between Spain and Portugal and then turned west to start heading back towards Olhão. 
This was probably the best days cycling we had. Beautiful beaches and lovely little towns and the cycle route was actually clearly marked along this section. We ended the day’s cycling around lunchtime in a beautiful place called Tavira. We had a wonderful lunch of bread, cheese and Portuguese sausage all washed down with a bottle of rose and spent the rest of the day wandering around this beautiful little town.
Day 5
Our last day took us past some more wonderful coastal scenery and through a National Park before arriving back at the start point.
I would highly recommend this trip to anyone who likes a bit of cycling, you could easily cycle from the Spanish border to the west coast of Portugal in 5-6 days without having to do more than 50 kms a day. My tips to make the trip better though would be:
- Start at Lagos and finish at Villa Real de San Antonio, the prevailing wind is westerly so better to have the wind at your back.
- Don’t bother with the stretch to Sagres. We drove it afterwards and it is very hilly and the cycle route follows the main road inland.
- Take a puncture repair kit
- Get an electric bike for your wife
- Mount your phone on the handlebars and actually follow the map on the bike route map that you can get.
- Recommended places to stay would be Lagos, Ferragudo, Albifuera, Olhão and Villa Real de San Antonio
Take The Leap 