2018 Tour - Spain & Portugal

[pross]

As the others state brilliant write up and pictures Once I start reading it cannot stop .
How did you get on with the lingo in Portugal was it easy enough finding English speaking in the hotels etc .

[Rynglieder]

As the others state brilliant write up and pictures Once I start reading it cannot stop .
How did you get on with the lingo in Portugal was it easy enough finding English speaking in the hotels etc .

No problems at all in Portugal or most of Spain. I suppose as we were hugging the coast they were used to tourists. There was just one B&B type place in the middle of nowhere when coming back up through central Spain that we were reliant on the owner speaking into his phone and using Google translate to communicate with us.

Language never bothers me too much, all part of the fun of travelling

[Rynglieder]

Day 8 Albufeira > Cadiz (226 miles)

Breakfast at the Hotel Velamar was the first time we had come across other English guests at any of our hotels, the upside of which was there was more of a selection of the food we were used to to set us up for the day. I still can't get accustomed to the Portuguese  / Spanish thing of a breakfast consisting largely of cake.

Whilst in an ideal world we would have just followed the coast eastwards back into Spain, there was the matter of a huge area of wetlands with no roads through, which means a rather circuitous route between Albufeira and Cadiz.

There was time for a last stop in Portugal though and our first break from the motorways came at Tavira where we walked a loop including two bridges that took us over the river and back and included a coffee at a street café.

From there we were faced with another motorway run as not much had caught my eye or intermediate stops when planning. The idea was that we would stop briefly in Seville. OK, we were not going to get to see much of it because of our schedule, but I reckoned an hour there would be more interesting than taking a break at yet another motorway service area. We got in easy enough and straight to the motorcycle parking area near the Plaza de Espana I had seen when flicking through Google Street View many months back.

It was another almost unbearably hot day but a bit of parkland in front of the building we had come to see at least gave some shade below the trees and access to a kiosk for some bottled water. We only spent half an hour or so around there, I was conscious that we had made arrangements to meet the keyholder of our apartment in Cadiz at 17:00 and I was going to need a bit of time to find the place and find somewhere suitable to park the bike.

Unfortunately getting out of Seville was nowhere as easy as getting in. The Zumo had had another of its tantrums and was just showing a diagonal line across the face of the display with no regard for the lack of any actual road there. I knew I wanted to go south, so it was back to the old fashioned method of looking at where the sun was and pointing the bike in roughly the right direction. For no obvious reason the traffic was just not moving and it must have been the best part of an hour before we finally crawled to the motorway junction. Not only is the GTR hard work to hold up in stop-start traffic, I do find the clutch to be heavy and it was a great relief when the tendons in my wrist got a rest.

We took the first opportunity we could to pull off the motorway somewhere near Jerez so that I could drop a quick text to the keyholder to give bit of notice we were going to be late; just one word stuff, I had no idea how much English they understood. That done it was a case of getting into Cadiz as quickly as possible.

The general area of the apartment that we would be staying in for four nights was found easily enough but unusually there was no obvious place to park up the bike. That is to say, there were loads of allocated motorcycle spaces, but all rammed full of scooters with no GTR sized gap. In the end, wife and bags were dumped at the kerbside and whist she hauled the lot off toward the apartment I went off in search of somewhere I could leave the bike.

I have to say that when we got in there the apartment was a bit of a disappointment. The bed growled at us when we tried sitting on it to unpack the panniers and we quickly realised that the central legs were broken. We had also hauled about 60 PG Tips tea bags across Iberia so it was a crushing blow to Carole to find that there was no kettle. First exploration of our accommodation suggested that there was no balcony or outdoor space which lead me to having an attack of the grumps in anticipation of having to walk down four flights of stairs whenever I wanted a smoke. At least it had a well functioning air-conditioning system and after cooling off a bit, taking a shower and putting the last of the clean clothes on we then managed to teach a Tasimo coffee maker how to produce reasonably hot water that we could dribble over a tea bag. I then spotted the narrow staircase just outside the apartment door that lead to a roof terrace where I could have a cigarette. It was far from perfect, but looking a bit better.

We finished the day by spending the evening walking around Cadiz (and getting hopelessly lost in the process). Why Cadiz? When I was sorting out the route in the late winter I was drawn to it as being an interesting and historical city rather than a tourist resort of the sort that I have already confessed an aversion to. It was a good choice and suited us perfectly for our mid-holiday base. The whole city is pretty much a fort and sits on a nib of land that almost makes it an island. On our first evening we walked from our rooms which were literally next-door-but-one to the cathedral, along the centre of the city until we reached the sea on the western side of the peninsular. As I have said, we did manage to get rather lost on the way back but at least we had managed to pick up a couple of bits from a supermarket and I would have a bottle of something in the fridge to look forward to.

It was good to settle down for the night's sleep in the knowledge that there was no compulsion to do any big mileage in the morning. The day's riding had been mostly motorways or city centres; not the best, but at least we had seen a bit more of the world.

8.1 Tavira
8.2 Seville – Plaza de Espana
8.3 Cadiz – the cathedral square from our roof terrace.

[O.C.]

Another great report and pics..      

[shaggs147]

Brilliant write up and pictures, very informative. Many thanks

[Rusty]

Well done Mr Rynglieder ... that is a proper story and well told .. like all the bits of detail and the route is all very coastal .. to start with. Spain is SO hot isn't it ? I have been a couple of times with work colleagues .. Northern, Picos and Dijon like yourself .. next year the plan is to do a little bit of Portugal too ! Great stuff and thank you for taking the time to share it with everyone .. that always takes time so much appreciated. 

[Brizzlerob]

 

[Rynglieder]

Day 9 Cadiz > Ronda > Cadiz (192 miles)

The thing with having a bedroom about ten metres from a cathedral bell tower is that it makes setting the alarm on your phone pretty pointless. My good lady did not seem to be overly disturbed by it though, so I let her sleep in whilst I took tea and tobacco onto the roof terrace and watched the bar and café staff slowly drag out the parasols, chairs and tables into the square below. They do seem to start late over here, nothing much seems to happen until 10:00 in the morning but small children can still be seen running around the city under the watch of their parents at 23:00.

We talked about what we wanted to do with our three days in Cadiz; I definitely wanted to make the trip into the mountains to Ronda, we would have one day around the city to give us and the bike a break from each other (and get the laundry done), another day we might perhaps take a run down to Gibraltar. Carole suggested that as the run to Ronda was my "must do" we should tackle it today.

The start of the ride was the usual fight out of a city centre and then re-crossing the Puente De La Constitución De 1812 suspension bridge onto the mainland before a short back-track along the motorway toward Jerez. We left at the exist for the A382 and passed the race circuit that is familiar to motorcycle sport fans and continued eastwards toward Arcos de Frontera, the road was a motorway standard dual carriageway and not particularly challenging at this stage, but the mountains on the far horizon promised better things to come.

There was a first stop to fuel the bike and buy a couple of soft drinks from the fridge in the service station (it was knocking on forty degrees again) followed by another as we reached the foothills and slipped off the main road near El Gastor to finish our drinks and just enjoy the peace and quiet. The area was sparsely populated, the roads were well surfaced and were now giving interesting riding through an attractive landscape – I was even starting to overtake things!

We reached Ronda and with some difficulty found somewhere we could tuck the bike away in the centre of town and then navigated our way on foot to the famous Puente Nuevo, an ancient tall arched bridge that spans the gorge that splits the town.  At least with most of our gear still in Cadiz we now had room in the panniers to stuff the jackets in so that we did not have to carry them round. We walked around Ronda for an hour or so and took in a coffee, we both really enjoyed the place. I fancied the walk down into the gorge to get a better photo of the bridge. Carole was not up for it (probably more so the walk back up in the heat) so I abandoned her in the shade of some trees at the top and I took the plunge while she caught up with a few calls and texts home. It was well worth the visit and another one on the "to go back to" list.

On leaving Ronda I enjoyed a superb run on the bike along the edge of the Siera de Grazzelema national park, passing through Gaucin and down to Jimena le Frontera, it was one of those runs that you wanted to keep going and I was looking forward to more of the same on the loop back t Cadiz.

Unfortunately although it started OK the roads on the loop back were not quite as well surfaced with ruts in the road on the riding line; nothing too seriou,s but enough to make the bike feel slightly unsettled in the bends. Worse still, the sun was dropping really low now so I was alternately blinded or into darkness as we weaved our way through the wooded hills. The road ran through very sparsely populated country and it seemed an age before we found a safe place to pull the bike off the road so that we could take a short break. We pushed on and was eventually rewarded with a spectacular sunset silhouetting the wind turbines on the hills nearing the main road to Cadiz.

Back on the more major roads there was a rather urgent fuel stop before making our way into the city in darkness. Due to the late start, it had been a longer day that I had intended so the evening beer was forgone. A good day though, a proper ride on a bike.

9.1 Alarm clock
9.2 A break near El Gasto
9.3 Ronda
9.4 Serania de Ronda
9.5 Benadalid
9.5 Mirador de los Castanares, Benadalid

[O.C.]

Excellent....again    

[PRD]

Great. Thank you.

[Rynglieder]

Days 10 & 11 – Around Cadiz

Our second full day in Cadiz was the planned day off the bike, the previous weeks clothes were fed to the washing machine and then spread around the apartment to dry. Having discharged our domestic duties we spent the rest of the day exploring the city. We really liked the place and would be happy to return one day.

For the third day I had considered the run down to Gibraltar but when we were finally up and about the decision was taken to abandon the idea due to the heat, walking around the whole day in the bike gear was not so attractive. It was a similar situation to Norway last year; if we had actually booked a room for the night we would have not thought twice about seeing it through, but we took the option of another lazy day including a climb of the cathedral bell tower to see what had been waking us up each morning and take in the view over the city. We dug deeper into the city and started to learn more of its history including the fact that it had been pretty much raised to the ground by the British and Dutch in the past which explained the city's fortifications and presumably those around the coasts we had been coming across over the last week.

Our stay in Cadiz was great, I would recommend it to anyone to visit but I think we had reached the point where we were going over the same ground and it was about right to be moving on.

10.1 - 10.6 Cadiz

[Rynglieder]

Day 12 Cadiz > Granada (204 miles)

It did not take much more than a quick wipe around the apartment to leave it as we found it. Checking out was easy enough, just leave the keys on the table and shut the door behind you.
The start of our next stint was the same as on our ride to Ronda a couple of days before; up to Jerez on the motorway and then the main road toward Arcos de la Frontera. Eventually we diverged from the previously ridden roads and made a first stop at Olvera. The bike was left at the bottom of the town and after fortifying ourselves at a cafe we took a slow but steady walk up the hill to the church and castle. In truth the castle did not look much more than a tower, the spire of rock on which it stood was certainly impressive though.  The terrace in front of the church gave good views across the landscape we were traversing so we left it at that, the climb to the castle would have been more than one step too far, the heat was still not letting up.

There was another spell of good riding on eastwards the A384 until we veered southwards toward Antequera where we took the opportunity for another brief stop and photo opportunity above the town. We did not really linger as the next planned break was just a few miles back west along narrower winding roads that climbed ever upwards through the Torcal de Antequera National Park, ending at a visitor centre at the summit of this small mountain range. Geology is not particularly one of our interests, as far as I am concerned a rock is pretty much a rock (unless of course it is a pebble), but I do appreciate a landscape and the formations up here were pretty unique. As a bonus, due to the altitude it was also slightly cooler, had a café, and that rare thing – a public toilet. It was a bit of a diversion from the straight run between Cadiz and Granada but had been worth the extra miles.

The rest of the days ride toward Granada was on primary dual carriageway with more upright riding and the centre of the tyres being scrubbed away. The city centre and the Zumo did not seem to be getting on, but I quickly realised that I had an entitlement to bus lanes and once I had worked that out the final run in made a bit more sense. Before too long we were parked up and checked in at the Hotel Alexares. This was one of the more expensive hotels I had booked for the trip, the odd star more than usual but it was more or less right opposite the entrance to the famous Alhambra Palace which I had intentions of getting up early for and visiting the next morning. The plan was dealt an immediate and fatal blow by the hotel receptionist who advised us that you needed to book days in advance for tickets –it seemed that once again my planning had not been quite as thorough as I had thought. There was a chance though that and cancellations hat came though would result in tickets being sold on the web site late at night, so we were left to cling on to a faint hope.

After getting changed we took the walk down the steep hill along the edge of the Alhambra grounds and down into the city centre. First job was to find something to eat so we settled down in a café in a square with a couple of pizzas and beers which were only slightly spoiled by some American students on an adjacent table who kept like annoying us by saying like at least once in every sentence which really like started to scrape at my nerves. As it was starting to look unlikely that we would see the palace from the inside I decided to take the consolation prize of the viewpoint on the opposite side of town so that we could at least see it from the outside. We headed on foot from the old town in the valley and slowly climbed the narrow winding streets up the hill on the opposite side. The city hangs on to is Moorish heritage and the shops in the streets looked more like an Arabian bazar than an European shopping street (not that I should really judge, I have never set foot in an Arabic city in my life). The rugs and incense seemed to be doing their job of trapping the tourist cash OK.

We started to get glimpses of the Alhambra between the buildings as we slogged upwards and eventually reached the Mirador San Nicholas where a good and lively crowd was already gathered, entertained by street musicians. The light was fading rapidly and the palace was stating to stand out against the darkening mountains behind as the floodlighting began to pick it out. We soaked up the atmosphere for a while before starting the walk back down, which was not too bad – going back up the other side was going to be hard on the legs though.

I rewarded myself with a couple of beers in the hotel bar on our return. Frequent checking of the web site had not revealed any cancellations though, so I was going to have to think of something else to entertain us with in the morning.

12.1 Olvera – Castle & café
12.2 Olvera – church
12.3 Antequera
12.4 Torcal de Antequera
12.5 Torcal de Antequera
12.6 Granada
12.7 The Alhambra from Mirador San Nicholas

[O.C.]

excellent and interesting read     

[Rusty]

Again the photos are super .. the sky sooooo blue one can almost feel the heat from here ! Nicely written up 

[Rynglieder]

Again the photos are super .. the sky sooooo blue one can almost feel the heat from here ! Nicely written up 

The blue skies were indeed remarkable, I just feel a bit of a prat for riding two sets of waterproof inners and jacket linings round Iberia for no reason.

Although we still did not escape the heat in late September I was a little caught out on how early it seemed to get dark so I am not sure if going even later in the year would have paid off.

Pete.